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THE NO. 6. 

ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER. 



THE 



POWER OF CONGRESS 



OVER THE 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



HEPRINTED FROM THE NEW-YORK EVENING POST, WITH ADDITIONS BY THK 

AUTHOR. 



77)_eodoTe J., Yi^ld 



NE W-YO RK: 

PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 
NO. 143 NASSAU-STREET. 



18 3 8. 



This periodical contains SJ sheets. — Postage under 100 miles, 6]cts. ; over 100, 10 cts. 



.Afc^- 



57 



POWER OF CONGRESS 



OVER THE 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



A CIVILIZED community presupposes a government of law. If 
that government be a republic, its citizens are the sole sources, as well 
c\iS X\\e subjects of its power. Its constitution is their bill of directions to 
their own agents — a grant authorizing the exercise of certain powers, 
and prohibiting that of others. In the Constitution of the United 
States, whatever else may be obscure, the clause granting power to 
Congi'ess over the Federal District may well defy misconstruction. 
Art. 1, Sec. 8, Clause 18 : " The Congress shall have power to exer- 
cise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such District." 
'Congress may make laws for the District " in all cases,'''' not of all 
kinds ; not all laws whatsoever, but laws " in all cases whatsoever." 
The grant respects the subjects of legislation, not the moral nature of 
the laws. The law-making power every where is subject to moral 
restrictions, whether limited by constitutions or not. No legislature 
can authorize murder, nor make honesty penal, nor virtue a crime, 
nor exact impossibilities. In these and similar respects, the power of 
Congress is held in check by principles, existing in?i the nature of 
things, not imposed by the Constitution, but presupposed and assumed 
by it. The power of Congress over the District is restricted only by 
those principles that limit ordinary legislation, and, in some respects, 
it has even wider scope. 

In common with the legislatures of the States, Congress cannot 
constitutionally pass ex post facto laws in criminal cases, nor suspend 
the writ of habeas corpus, nor pass a bill of attainder, nor abridge the 
freedom of speech and of the press, nor invade the right of the people 
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, nor enact 
laws respecting an establishment of religion. These are general lim- 
itations. Congress cannot do these things any where. The exact 
import, therefore, of the clause " in all cases whatsoever," is, on all 
subjects within the apjiropriaie sphere of legislation. Some legisla- 
tures are restrained by constitutions, from the exercise of powers 
strictly within the proper sphere of legislation. Congressional power 
over the District has no such restraint. It traverses the whole field 
of legitimate legislation. All the power which any legislature has 
within its own jurisdiction. Congress holds over the District of Colum- 
bia. 

It has been objected that the clause in question respects merely 



police regulations, and that its sole design was to enable Congress to 
protect itself against popular tumults. But if the convention that 
framed the Constitution aimed to provide for a single case only, why 
did tliey provide for " all cases whatsoever ?" Besides, this clause 
was opposed in many of the state conventions, because the grant of 
power was extended to " all cases whatsoever," instead of being re- 
stricted to police regulations alone. In the Virginia Convention, 
George Mason, the father of the Virginia Constitution, Patrick Henry, 
Mr. Grayson, and others, assailed it on that ground. Mr. Mason said, 
" This clause gives an unlimited authority in every possible case within 
the District. Ho would willingly give them exclusive power as far as 
respected the police and good government of the place, but he would 
give them no more." Mr. Grayson exclaimed against so large a 
grant of power — said that control over the police was all-sufficient, 
and " that the Continental Congress never had an idea of exclusive 
legislation in all cases." Patrick Henry said : " Shall we be told, 
when'about to grant such illimitable authority, that it will never be 
exercised ? Is it consistent with any principle of prudence or good 
Tpo\icy,\.o ^rawX unlimited, unhounded authority?'''' Mr. Madison said 
in reply : " I did conceive that the clause under consideration was one 
of those parts which would speak its own praise. I cannot com- 
prehend that the power of legislation over a small District, will involve 
the dangers which he apprehends. When any power is given, its del- 
egation necessarily involves authority to make laws to execute it. 
* * * * The powers which are found necessary to be given, are 
therefore delegated generally, and particular and minute specification 
is lefl to the Legislature. "^ * * It is not within the limits of human 
capacity to delineate on paper all those particular cases and circum- 
stances, in which legislation by the general legislature, would be ne- 
cessary." Governor Randolph said : " Holland has no ten miles 
square, but she has the Hague where the deputies of the States assem- 
ble. But the influence which it has given the province of Holland, to 
have the seat of government within its territory, subject in some re- 
spects to its control, has been injurious to the other provinces. The 
wisdom of the convention is thereibre manifest in granting to Congress 
exclusive jurisdiction over the place of their session." (See delates 
in the Virginia Convention, p. 320.) In the forty-third number of the 
" Federalist," Mr. Madison says: "The indispensable necessity of 
complete authority at the seat of government, carries its own evidence 
with it." 

Finally, that the grant in question is to be interpreted according to 
the obvious import of its terms, and not in such a way as to restrict it 
to 2)olice regulations, is proved by the fact, that the State of Virginia 
proposed an amendment to the United States Constitution at the time 
of its adoption, providing that this clause "should be so construed as 
to give power only over the police and good government of said Dis- 
trict," which amendment was rejected. Fourteen other amendments, 
proposed at the same time by Virginia, wer» adopted. 



The former part of the clause under consideration, " Congress 
shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation," gives sole jurisdic- 
tion, and the latter part, " in all cases whatsoever," defines the extent of 
it. Since, then, Congress is the sole legislature within the District, 
and since its power is limited only by the checks common to all legis- 
latures, it follows that v/hat the law-making power is intrinsically com- 
petent to do any where, Congress is competent to do in the District of 
Columbia. 

Statement of the Question at Iisue. 

Having disposed of preliminaries, we proceed to argue the real ques- 
tion at issue. Is the law-making power competent to abolish slavery 
when not restricted in that particular by constitutional provisions — or, 
Is the abolition of slavery within the appropriate sphere of legislation ? 
In every government, absolute sovereignty exists somewhere. In 
the United States it exists primarily with the ])eople, andulti^nuic sove- 
reignty always exists with them. In each of the States, the legislature 
possesses a representative sovereignty, delegated by the people through 
the Constitution — the people thus committing^to the legislature a por- 
tion of their sovereignty, and specifying in their constitutions the 
amount and the conditions of the grant. That thepeo/>/e in any state 
where slavery exists, have the power to abolish it, none will deny. If 
the legislature have not the power, it is because the people have re- 
served it to themselves. Had they lodged with the legislature "pow- 
er to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever," they 
would have parted with their sovereignty over the legislation of the 
State, and so far forth the legislature would have become the people, 
clothed with all their functions, and as such competent, during the con' 
iinuance of the grant, to do whatever the people might have done be- 
fore the surrender of their power: consequently, they would have the 
power to abolish slavery. The sovereignty of ^be District of Columbia 
exists somewhere — where is it lodged ? The citizens of the District 
have no legislature of their own, no representation in Congress, and 
no political power whatever. Maryland and Virginia have surren- 
dered to the United States their " full and absolute right and entire 
sovereignty," and the people of the United States have committed to 
Congress by the Constitution, the pov/er to " exercise exclusive legis- 
lation in all cases whatsoever over such District." 

Thus, tlie sovereignty of the District of Columbia, is shown to reside 
solely in the Congress of the United States ; and since the power of the 
people of a state to abolish slavery within their own limits, results from 
their entire sovereignty within the state, so the power of Congress to 
abolish slavery in the District, results from its entire sovereignty within 
the District. If it be objected that Congress can have no more power 
over the District, than was held by the legislatures of Maryland and 
Virginia, we ask what clause in the constitution graduates the power 
of Congress by the standard of a sfate legislature ? Was the LTnrted 
States constitution worked into its present shape under-the' measuring 
line and square of Virginia and Mar}rland ? and is its^ower'to'be bev- 



^ 



elled down till it can run in the grooves of state legislation? There is 
a deal of prating about constitutional power over the District, as though 
Congress were indebted for it to Maryland and Virginia. The powers 
of those states, whether few or many, prodigies or nullities, have noth- 
ing to do with the question. As well thrust in the powers of the Grand 
Lama to join issue upon, or twist papal bulls into constitutional tether, 
with which to curb congressional action. The Constitution of the 
United States gives power to Congress, and takes it away, and it 
alone. Maryland and Virginia adopted the Constitution before they 
ceded to the United States the territory of the District. By their acts 
of cession, they abdicated their own sovereignty over the District, and 
thus made room for that provided by the United States constitution, 
which sovereignty was to commence us soon as a cession of territoi-y 
by states, and its acceptance by Congress furnished a sphere for its 
exercise. 

That the abolition of slavery is within the sphere of legislation, I 
argue, secondly, from the fact, that slavery as a legal system, is the crea- 
ture of legislation. The law by creating slavery, not only affirmed its 
existence to be within the sphere and under the control of legislation, 
but equally, the conditions and terms of its existence, and the question 
whether or not it should exist. Of course legislation would not travel 
out of its sphere, in abolishing what is within it, and what was recog- 
nised to be within it, by its own act. Cannot legislatures repeal their 
own laws ? If law can take from a man his riglits, it can give them 
back again. If it can say, "your body belongs to your neighbor," it 
can say, " it belongs io yourself, and I will sustain your right." If it can 
annul a man's right to himself, held by express grant from his Maker, 
and can create for another an artificial title to him, can it not annul 
the artificial title, and leave the original owner to hold himself by his 
original title? 

3. The abolition of slavery has always been considered within the ap- 
propriate sphere of legislation. Almost every civilized nation has abol- 
ished slavery by law. The history of legislation since the revival of 
letters, is a record crowded with testimony to the universally admitted 
competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery. It is so 
manifestly an attribute not merely of absolute sovereignty, but even 
of ordinary legislation, that the competency of a legislature to exer- 
cise it, may well nigh be reckoned among the legal axioms of the ci- 
vilized world. Even the night of the dark ages was not dark enough 
to make this invisible. 

The Abolition decree of the great council of England was passed 
in 1102. The memorable Irish decree, " that all the English slaves 
in the whole of Ireland, be immediately emancipated and restored to 
their former liberty," was issued in 1171. Slavery in England was 
abolished by a general charter of emancipation in 1381. Passing 
over many instances of the abolition of slavery by law, both during 
the middle ages and since the reformation, wc find them multiplying 
as we approach our own times. In 1776 slavery was aholished in 
Prussia by special edict. In St. Domingo, Caye^me, Guadaloupe 



and Martinique, in 1794, where more than 600,000 slaves were 
emancipated by the French government. In Java, 1811 ; in Ceylon, 
1815; in Buenos Ayres, 1816; in St. Helena, 1819; in Colombia, 
1821: by the Congress of Chili in 1821; in Cape Colony, 1823; 
in Malacca, 1825 ; in the southern provinces of Birmah, 1826 ; in 
Bolivia, 1826 ; in Peru, Guatemala, and Monte Video, 1828 , in Ja- 
maica, Barbadoes, Bermudas, Bahamas, the Mauritius, St. Christo- 
pher's, Nevis, the Virgin Islands, Antigua, Montserrat, Dominica, St. 
Vincents, Grenada, Berbice, Tobago, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Honduras, 
Demarara, and the Cape of Good Hope, on the 1st of August, 1834. 
But waving details, suffice it to say, that Eiigland, France, Spain, 
Poi'tugal, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Prussia, and Germany, have all 
and often given their testimony to the competency of the law to 
abolish slavery. In our own country, the Legislature of Pennsylvania 
passed an act of aboHtion in 1780, Connecticut, in 1784 ; Rhode Island, 
1784 ; New-York, 1799 ; New-Jersey, in 1804 ; Vermont, by Con. 
stitution, in 1777 ; Massachusetts, in 1780 ; and New Hampshire, in 
1784. 

When the competency of thelaw-making power to abolish slavery, 
has thus been recognised every where and for ages, when it has been 
embodied in the highest precedents, and celebrated in the thousand 
jubilees of regenerated liberty, is it forsooth an achievement of modern 
discovery, that such a power is a nullity ? — that all these acts of abo- 
lition are void, and that the millions disenthralled by them, are, either 
themselves or their posterity, still legally in bondage ? 

4. Legislative power has abolished slavery in its parts. The law 
of South Carolina prohibits the working of slaves more than fifteen 
hours in the twenty-four. [See Brevard's Digest, 253.] In other 
words, it takes from the slaveholder his power over nine hours of the 
slave's time daily ; and if it can take nine hours .it nuiy take twenty, 
four — if two-fifths, then five-fifths. The laws of Georgia prohibit 
the working of slaves on the first day of the week ; and if they can 
do it for the first, they can for the six following. Laws embodying 
the same principle have existed for ages in nearly all governments 
that have tolerated slavery. 

The law of North Carolina prohibits the " immoderate" correction 
of slaves. If it has power to prohibit immoderate correction, it can 
prohibit moderate correction — all correction, which would be virtual 
emancipation; for, take from the master the power to inflict pain, and 
he is master no longer. Cease to ply the slave with the stimulus of 
fear, and he is free. Laws similar to this exist in slaveholding govern- 
ments generally. 

The Constitution of Mississippi gives the General Assembly power 
to make laws " to oblige the owneis of slaves to ti'eat them xoith hu- 
manity." The Constiiution of Mis-souri has the same clause, and an 
additional one making it the dutt of the legislature to pass such laws 
as may be necessary to secure the hurnane treatment of the slaves 
This grant of power to those legislatures empowers them to decide 



8 

what is and what is 7iot "■ humane treatment." Otherwise it gives no 
" power " — the clause is mere waste paper, and flouts in the face of a 
mocked and befooled legislature. A clause giving power to require 
" humane treatment " covers all the particulars of such treatment — 
gives power to exact it in all respects — requiring certain acts, and 
prohibilvng others — maiming, branding, chaining together, allowing 
each but a quart of corn a day,* and but "one shirt' and one pair 
of pantaloons" in six months f — separating families, destroying mar- 
liage, floggings for learning the alphabet and reading the Bible — 
robbing them of their oath, of jury trial, and of the right to worship 
God according to conscience — the legislature has power to specify 
each of these acts — declare that it is not "humane treatment," and 
PROHIBIT it. — The legislature may also believe that driving men and 
women into the field, and forcing them to work without pay as long as 
they live, is not " humane treatment," and being constitutionally 
bound ^' to oblige" masters to practise " humane treatment " — they 
have the poiver to prohibit such treatment, and are bound to do it. 

The law of Louisiana makes slaves real estate, prohibiting the 
holder, if he be also a land holder, to separate them from the soil.:}: 
If it has power to prohibit the sale without the soil, it can prohibit the 
sale with it ; and if it can prohibit the sale as property, it can prohibit 
the holding as property. Similar laws exist in the French, Spanish, 
and Portuguese colonies. 

The law of Louisiana requires the master to give his slaves a cer- 
tain amount of food and clothing, {Martin'' s Digest, 6i0.) If it can 
oblige the master to give the slave one thing, it can oblige him to give 
him another : if food and clothing, then wages, liberty, his own body. 
Such laws exist in most slaveholding governments. 

By the slave laws of Connecticut, under which slaves are now held, 
(for even Connecticut is still a slave State,) slaves might receive and 
hold property, and prosecute suits in their own name as plaintiffs : 
[This last was also the law of Virginia in 1795. See Tucker's 
" Dissertation on Slavery," p. 73.] There were also laws making 
marriage contracts legal, in certain contingencies, and punishing in- 
fringements of them, ]_"■ Reeve's Law of Baron and Femme," p. 340-1 .] 
Each of the laws enumerated above, doss, in principle, abolisii slave- 
ry ; and all of them together abolish it in fact. True, not as a lohole, 
and at a stroke, nor all in one place ; but in its j)arts, by piecemeal, at 
divers times and places ; thus showing that the abolition of slavery is 
within the boundary of legislation. 

* LaAv of North Carolina, Haywood's Manual, 521-5. 

t Lav/ of Louisiana, Martin's Digest, GIO. 

t Virginia made slaves real estate by a law passed in 1705. {Beverly's Hist, 
of Va., p. 98.) I do not find the precise time when this law was repealed, prob- 
ably whenVirginia became the chief slave breeder for the cotton-growing and 
sugar-planling country, and made yoiuig men and Avoraen " from fifteen to 
twenty-five '' the main staple production of the State, 



9 

5. The competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery, has 
been recognized by all the slaveholding States, either directly or by im- 
plication. Some States recognize it in their Constitutions, by giving 
the legislature power to emancipate such slaves as may " have ren- 
dered the state some distinguished service," and others by express 
prohibitory restrictions. The Constitutions of Mississippi, Arkansas, 
and other States, restrict the power of the legislature in this respect. 
Why this express prohibition, if the law-making power cannot abolish 
slavery ? A stately farce, indeed, formally to construct a special 
clause, and with appropriate rites induct it into the Constitution, for 
the express purpose of restricting a nonentity ! — to take from the law- 
making power what it never had, and what cannot pertain to it ! The 
legislatures of those States have no power to abolish slavery, simply 
because their Constitutions have expressly taken atcay that power. 
The people of Arkansas, Mississippi, &c., well knew the competency 
of the law-making power to abolish slavery, and hence their zeal to 
restrict it. The fact that these and other States have inhibited their 
legislatures from the exercise of this power, shows that the abolition of 
slavery is acknowledged to be a proper subject of legislation, when 
Constitutions impose no restrictions. 

The slaveholding States have recognised this power in their 
laji's. The Virginia Legislature passed a law in 1786 to prevent 
the further importation of Slaves, of which the following is an 
extract : " And be it further enacted that every slave imported into 
this commonwealth contrary to the true intent and meaning of this 
act, shall upon such importation become free." By a law of Virginia, 
passed Dec. 17, 1792, a slave brought into the state and kept there 
a year, was free. The Maryland Court of Appeals at the December 
term 1813 (see case of Stewart vs. Oakes,) decided that a slave owned 
in Maryland, and sent by his master into Virginia to work at different 
periods, making one year in the whole, became free, being emancipa- 
ted by the law of Virginia quoted above. North Carolina and Geor- 
gia in their acts of cession, transferring to the United States the terri- 
tory now constituting the States of Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, 
made it a condition of the grant, that the provisions of the ordinance 
of '87, should be secured to the inhabitants tcith the exception of the sixth 
article xohich prohibits slavery ; thus conceding, both the competency of 
law to abolish slavery, and the power of Congress to do it, within its 
jurisdiction. Besides, these acts show the prevalent belief at that time, 
in the slaveholding States, that the general government had adopted 
a line of policy aiming at the exclusion of slavery from the entire ter- 
ritory of the United States, not included within the original States, and 
that this policy would be pursued unless prevented by specific and for- 
mal stipulation. 

Slaveholding states have asserted this power in their judicial deci- 
sions. In numerous cases their highest courts have decided that if the 
legal owner of slaves takes them into those States where slavery has 
been abolished either by law or by the constitution, such removal eman- 



10 

cipates them, such law or constitution aboh'shing their slavery. This 
principle is asserted in the decision of the Supremo Court of Louisiana, 
in the case of Lunsford vs. Coquillon, 14 Martin's La. Reps. 401. Also 
by the Supreme Court of Virginia, in the case of Hunter vs. Fulcher, 
1 Leigh's Reps. 172. The same doctrine was laid down by Judge 
Washington, of the United States Supreme Court, in the case of But- 
ler vs. Hopper, Washington's Circuit Court Reps. 508. This principle 
was also decided by the Court of Appeals in Kentucky ; case of Ran. 
kin vs. Lydia, 2 Marshall's Reps. 407 ; see also, Wilson vs. Isbell, 5 
Call's Reps. 425, Spotts vs. Gillespie, 6 Randolph's Reps. 566. The 
State vs. Lasselle, 1 Blackford's Reps. 60, Marie Louise vs. Mariot, 8 
La. Reps. 475. In this case, which was tried in 1836, the slave had 
been taken by her master to France and brought back ; Judge Ma- 
thews, of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, decided that "residence 
for one moment" under the laws of France emancipated her. 

6. Eminent statesmen, themselves slaveholders, have conceded this 
power. Washington, in a letter to Robert Morris, dated April 12, 
1786, says : " There is not a man living, who wishes more sincerely 
than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery ; but there 
is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accom- 
plished, and that is by legislative authority." In a letter to Lafayette, 
dated May 10, 1786, he says: It (the abolition of 'slavery) certainly 
might, and assuredly ought to be effected, and that too by legislative 
authority." In a letter to John Fenton Mercer, dated Sept. 9, 1786, 
he says : " It is among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by 
which slavery in this country may be abolished by laze." In a letter 
to Sir John Sinclair, he says : " There are in Pennsylvania, laws for 
the gradual abolition of slavery, which neither Maryland nor Virginia 
have at present, but which nothing is more certain than that they must 
have, and at a period not remote." Speaking of movements in the 
Virginia Legislature in 1777, for the passage of a law emancipating 
the slaves, Mr. Jefferson says : " The principles of the amendment 
were agreed on, that is to say, the freedom of all born after a certain 
day ; but it was found that the public mind would not bear the propo- 
sition, yet the day is not far distant, when it must hear and adopt it." — 
Jefferson's Memoirs, v. 1, p. 35. It is well known that Jefferson, 
Pendleton, Mason, Wythe and Lee, while acting as a committee of the 
Virginia House of Delegates to revise the State Laws, prepared a plan 
for the gradual emancipation of the slaves by law. These men were 
the great lights of Virginia. Mason, the author of the Virginia Con- 
stitution ; Pendleton, the President of the memorable Virginia Conven- 
tion in 1787, and President of the Virginia Court of Appeals ; Wythe 
was the Blackstone of the Virginia bench, for a quarter of a century 
Chancellor of the State, the professor of law in the University of Wil- 
liam and Mary, and the preceptor of Jefferson, Madison, and Cliief 
Justice Marshall. He was author of the celebrated remonstrance to 
the English House of Commons on the subject of the stamp act. As 
to Jefferson, his name is his biography. 



11 

Every slavehokling member of Congress from the States of Mary- 
land, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, voted for the 
celebrated ordinance of 1787, which abolished the slavery then existing 
in the Northwest Territory. Patrick Henry, in his well known letter 
to Robert Pleasants, of Virginia, January IS, 1773, says : "I believe 
a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this la- 
mentable evil." William Pinkney, of Maryland, advocated the aboli- 
tion of slavery by law, in the legislature of that State, in 17S9. Luther 
Martin urged the same measure both in the Federal Convention, and 
in his report to the Legislature of Maryland. In 1796, St. George 
Tucker, professor of law in the University of William and Mary, and 
Judge of the General Court, published an elaborate dissertation on sla- 
very, addressed to the General Assembly of the State, and urging upon 
them the abolition of slavery by law. 

John Jay, while New- York was yet a slave State, and himself in law 
a slaveholder, said in a letter from Spain, in 1786, <' An excellent law 
might be made out of the Pennsylvania one, for the gradual abolition 
of slavery. Were I in your legislature, I would present a bill for the 
purpose, drawn up with great care, and I would never cease moving it 
till it became a law, or I ceased to be a member." 

Daniel D. Tompkins, in a message to the Legislature of New- York, 
January 8, 1812, said : " To devise the means for the gradual and ul- 
timate extermination from amongst us of slavery, is a work woithy the 
representatives of a polished and enlightened nation." 

The Virginia Legislature asserted this power in 1832. At the 
close of a month's debate, the following proceedings were had. I ex- 
tract from an editorial article of the Richmond Whig, of January "26, 
1832. 

" The report of the Select Committee, adverse to legislation on 
the subject of Abolition, was in these words : Resolved, as the opin- 
ion of this Committee, that it is inexpedient for the present, to 
make any legislative enactments for the abolition of Slavery." This 
Report Mr. Preston moved to reverse, and thus to declare that it was 
expedient, iioio to make Legislative enactments for the abolition of 
slavery. This was meeting the question in its strongest form. It de- 
manded action, and immediate action. On this proposition the vote 
was 58 to 73. Many of the most decided friends of abolition voted 
against the amendment ; because they thought public opinion not suffi- 
ciently prepared for it, and that it might prejudice the cause to move 
too rapidly. The vote on Mr. Witcher's motion to postpone the whole 
subject indefinitely, indicates the true state of opinion in the House. 
— That was the test question, and was so intended and proclaimed by 
its mover. That motion was negatived, 71 to 60 ; showing a major- 
ity of 11, who by that vote, declared their belief that at the proper 
time, and in the proper mode, Virginia ought to commence a system 
of gradual abolition." 

8. The Congress of the United States have asserted this power. 
The ordinance of '87, declaring that there should be " neither slavery 

2 



12 

nor involuntary servitude," in the North Western territory, abolished 
the slaver}- then existing there. The Supreme Court of Mississippi, 
in its decision in the case ot" Flarvey vs. Deckei*, Walker's Mi. Reps. 
36, declared that the ordinance emancipated the slaves then held 
there. In this decision the question is argued ably and at great length. 
The Supreme Court of Louisiana made the same decision in the case 
of Forsyth vs. Nash, 4 Martin's La. Reps. 385, The same doctrine 
was laid down by Judge Porter, (late United States Senator from 
Louisiana.) in his decision at the March term of the La. Supreme 
Court, 1830, in the case of Merry vs. Chexnaider, 20 Martin's 
Reps. 699. 

That the ordinance abolished the slavery then existing, is also shown 
by the fact, that persons holding slaves in the territory petitioned for 
the repeal of the article abolishing slavery, assigning that as a reason. 
" The petition of the citizens of Randolph and St. Clair counties in 
the Illinois country, stating that they were in possession of slaves, 
and praying the repeal of that act (the 6th article of the ordinance of 
'87) and the passage of a law legalizing slavery there." [Am. State 
papers, Public Lands, v. 1. p. 69,] Congress passed this ordinance 
before the United States Constitution was adopted, when it derived all 
its authority from the articles of Confederation, which conferred pow- 
ers of legislation far more restricted than those conferred on Congress 
over the District and Territories by the United States Constitution. 
Now, we ask, how does the Constitution ah'idge the powers which 
Congress possessed under the articles of confederation ? 

The abolition of the slave trade by Congress, in 1808, is another 
illustration of the competency of legislative power to abolish slavery. 
The African slave trade has become such a mere tecTinic, in common 
parlance, that the fact of its being ]jroper slavery is overlooked. The 
buying and selling, the transportation, and the horrors of the middle 
passage, were mere incidents of the slavery in which the victims were 
held. Let things be called by their own names. When Congress 
abolished the African slave trade, it abolished slavery — supreme 
slavery — power frantic with license, trampling a whole hemisphere 
scathed with its fires, and running down with blood. True, Congress 
did not, in the abolition of the slave trade, abolish all the slavery 
within its jurisdiction, but it did abolish all the slavery in owe _pari 
of it^ jurisdiction. What has rifled it of power to abolish slavery in 
another part of its jurisdiction, especially in that part where it has 
" exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever?" 

9. The Constitution of the United States recognises this poiver hj 
the most conclusive implication. In Art. 1, sec. 3, clause 1, it prohibits 
the abolition of the slave trade previous to 1808 : thus implying the 
power of Congress to do it at once, but for the restriction ; and its power 
to do it unconditionally, when that restriction ceased. Again : In 
Art. 4, sec. 2, "No person held to service or labor in one state under 
the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any 
law or regulation therein, be discharged from said service or labor.'' 



13 

This clause was inserted, as all admit, to prevent the runaway slave 
from being emancipated by the laws of the free states. If these laws 
had nojiower to emancipate, why this constitutional guard to prevent it ? 

The insertion of the clause, was the testimony of the eminent jurists 
that framed the Constitution, to the existence of the power, and their 
public proclamation, that the abolition of slavery was within the ap- 
propriate sphere of legislation. The right of the owner to that which 
is rightfully property, is founded on a principle of universal law, and 
is recognised and protected by all civilized nations ; property in slaves 
is, by general consent, an exception ; hence slaveholders insisted upon 
the insertion of this clause in the United States Constitution, that they 
might secure by an express provision, that from which protection is 
withheld, by the acknowledged principles of universal law.* By de- 
manding this provision, slaveholders consented that their slaves should 
not be recognised as property by the United States Constitution, and 
hence they found their claim, on the fact of their being ^^ persons, and 
held to service." 

But waiving all concessions, whether of constitutions, laws, judi- 
cial decisions, or common consent, I take the position that the power 
of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, follows from the fact, 
that as the sole legislature there, it has unquestionable power to adopt 
the Common Laio, as the legal system within its exclusive jurisdiction. 
This has been done, with certain restrictions, in most of the States, 
either by legislative acts or by constitutional implication. The com- 
mon LAW KNOWS NO SLAVES. Its principles annihilate slavery wher- 
ever they touch it. It is a universal, unconditional, abolition act. 
Wherever slavery is a legal system, it is so only by statute law, 
and in violation of common law. The declaration of Lord Chief 
Justice Holt, that " by the common law, no man can have pro- 
perty in another," is an acknowledged axiom, and based upon the 
well known common law definition of property. " The subjects of 
dominion or property are things, as contra-distinguished from persons." 
Let Congress adopt the common law in the District of Columbia, and 
slavery there is at once abolished. Congress may well be at home 

* The fact, that under the articles of Confederation, slaveholders, whose 
slaves had escaped into free states, had no legal power to force them back, — 
that noiu they have no power to recover, by process of law, their slaves who es- 
cape to Canada, the South American States, or to Europe — the case already 
cited in which the Supreme Court of Louisiana decided, that residence "for 
one moment," under the laws of France emancipated an American slave — the 
case of Fulton, vs Lewis, 3 Har. and John's Reps., 56, where the slave of a St. 
Domingo slaveholder, who brought him to Maryland in '93, was pronounced 
free by the Maryland Court of Appeals — these, with other facts and cases 
" too numerous to mention," are illustrations of the acknowledged truth here 
asserted, that by the consent of the civilized world, and on the principles of 
universal law, slaves are not" properly," but self-proprietors, and that when- 
ever held as property under laic, it is only by positive legislative acts, forcibly 
setting aside the law of nature, the common law, and the principles of imiversal 
justice and right between man and man, — principles paramount to all law, and 
from which alone law derives its intrinsic authoritative sanction. 



14 

in common law legislation, for the common law is the grand element 
of the United States Constitution. All its fundamental provisions are 
instinct with its spirit ; and its existence, principles and paramount autho- 
rity, are presupposed and assumed throughout the whole. The pre- 
amble of the Constitution plants the standard of the Common Law 
immovably in its foreground. " We, the people of the United States, 
in order to establish justice, &c., do ordain and establisli this Con- 
stitution ;" thus proclaiming devotion to justice, as the controlling mo- 
tive in the organization of the Government, and its secure establish, 
ment the chief object of its aims. By this most solemn recognition, 
the common law, that grand legal embodyment of ^' justice'^ and fun- 
damental right was made the groundwork of the Constitution, and 
intrenched beliind its strongest munitions. The second clause of Sec. 
9, Art. 1 ; Sec. 4, Art. 2, and the last clause of Sec. 2, Art. 3, with 
Articles 7, 8, 9, and 13 of the Amendments, are also express recogni- 
tions of the common law as the presiding Genius of the Constitution. 
By adopting the common law within its exclusive jurisdiction Con- 
gress would carry out the principles of our glorious Declaration, and 
follow the highest precedents in our national history and jurispru- 
dence. It is a political maxim as old as civil legislation, that laws should 
be strictly homogeneous with the principles of the government whose 
will they express, embodying and carrying them out — being indeed 
the •principles themselves, in preceptive form — representatives alike of 
the nature and the power of the Government — standing illustrations 
of its genius and spirit, while they proclaim and enforce its authority. 
Who needs be told that slavery is in antagonism to the principles of 
the Declaration, and the spirit of the Constitution, and that tiicse and 
the principles of the common law gravitate toward each other with 
irrepressible affinities, and mingle into one ? The common law came 
hither with our pilgrim fathers ; it was their birthright, their panoply, 
their glory, and their song of rejoicing in the house of their pilgrim, 
age. It covered them in the day of their calamity, and their trust 
was under the shadow of its wings. From the first settlement of the 
country, the genius of our institutions and our national spirit have 
claimed it as a common possession, and exulted in it with a common 
pride. A century ago, Governor Pownall, one of the most eminent 
constitutional jurists of colonial times, said of the common law, "In 
all the colonies the common law, is received as the foundation and 
main body of their law." In the Declaration of Rights, made by the 
Continental Congress at its first session in '74, there was the following 
resolution : " Resolved, That the respective colonies are entitled to the 
common law of England, and especially to the great and inestimable 
privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage according to the 
course of that law." Soon after the organization of the general go- 
vernment, Chief Justice Ellsworth, in one of his decisions on the bench 
of the United States Supreme Cowl, said : '' The common law of this 
country remains the same as it was before the revolution." Chief 
Justice Marshall, in his decision in the case of Livingston vs. Jefferson, 



15 

said : " When our ancestors migrated to America, they brought with 
them the common law of their native country, so far as it was appli- 
cable to their new situation and I do not conceive that the revolution 
in any degree changed the relations of man to man, or the law which 
regulates them. In breaking our political connection with the parent 
state, we did not break our connection with each other." [See 
HalVs Law Journal, new series.'\ Mr. Duponceau, in his "Disser- 
tation on the Jurisdiction of Courts in the United States," says, " I 
consider the common law of England the jus commune of the United 
States. I think I can lay it down as a correct principle, that the 
common law of England, as it was at the time of the declaration] of 
Independence, still continues to be the national law of this country, 
so far as it is applicable to our present state, and subject to the 
modifications it has received here in the course of nearly half a 
century. Chief Justice Taylor of North Carolina, in his decision in 
the case of the State vs. Reed, in 1823, Hawkes' N. C. Reps. 454, 
says, " a law of j^aramount obligation to the statute was violated by 
the offence — common law, founded upon the law of nature, and cor- 
firmed by revelation." The legislation of the United States abounds 
in recognitions of the principles of the common law, asserting their 
paramount binding power. Sparing details, of which our national 
state papers are full, we illustrate by a single instance. It was made 
a condition of the admission of Louisiana into the Union, that the rignt 
of trial by jury should be secured to all her citizens, — the United 
States government thus employing its power to enlarge the jurisdiction 
of the common law in this its great representative. 

Having shown that the abolition of slavery is within the compe- 
tency of the law-making power, when unrestricted by constitutional 
provisions, and that the legislation of Congress over the District is 
thus unrestricted, its power to abolish slavery there is established. 

Besides this general ground, the power of Congress to abolish 
slavery in the District may be based upon another equally tenable. 
We argue it from the fact, that slavery exists there now by an act of 
Congress. In the act of 16th July, 1790, Congress accepted portions 
of territory offered by the states of Maryland and Virginia, and 
enacted that the laws, as they then were, should continue in force, 
" until Congress shall otherwise by law provide ;" thus making the 
slave codes of Maryland and Virginia its own. Under these laws, 
adopted by Congress, and in effect re-enacted and made laws of the 
District, the slaves there ai'e now held. 

Is Congress so impotent in its own " exclusive jurisdiction" that 
it cannot " otherwise by law provide ?" If it can say, what shall be 
considered property, it can say what shall no^ be considered property. 
Suppose a legislature enacts, that marriage contracts shall be mere 
bills of sale, making a husband the proprietor of his wife, as his bona 
fide property; and suppose husbands should herd their wives in droves 
for the market as beasts of burden, or for the brothel as victims of 
ludt, and then prate about their inviolable legal property, and deny 



16 

the power of the legislature, which stamped them property, to undo 
its own wrong, and secure to wives by law the rights of human beings. 
Would such cant about " legal rights" be heeded where reason and 
justice held sway, and where law, based upon fundamental morality, 
received homage ? If a frantic legislature pronounces woman a 
chattel, has it no power, with returning reason, to take back the blas- 
phemy ? Is the impious edict irrepealable ? Be it, that with legal 
forms it lias stamped wives "wares." Can no legislation blot out the 
brand ? Must the handwriting of Deity on human nature be expunged 
for ever ? Has law no power to stay the erasing pen, and tear off 
the scrawled label that covers up the image of God ? We now pro- 
ceed to show that 

THE rOWER OF CoNGRESS TO ABOLISH SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT HAS 
BEEN, TILL RECENTLY, UNIVERSALLY CONCEDED. 

1. It has been assumed by Congress itself. The following record 
stands on the journals of the House of Representatives for 1804, p. 
225 : " On motion made and seconded that the House do come to the 
fcllowing resolution : ' Resolved, That from and after the 4th day of 
July, 1805, all blacks and people of color that shall be born within 
tli3 District of Columbia, or whose mothers shall be the property of 
ary person residing within said District, shall be free, the males at 
the age of — , and the females at the age of — . The main question 
being taken that the House do agree to said motion as originally pro- 
posed, it was negatived by a majority of 46.' " Though the motion 
was lost, it was on the ground of its alleged inexpediency alone, and 
not because Congress lacked the constitutional power. In the debate 
which preceded the vote, the 'poxoer of Congress was conceded. In 
March, 1816, the House of Representatives passed the following reso- 
lution : — " Resolved, That a committee be appointed to inquire into 
the existence of an inhuman and illegal traffic in slaves, carried on in 
and through the District of Columbia, and to report whether any and 
what measures a^e necessary for j^utting a stop to the same." 

On the 9th of January, 1829, the House of Representatives passed 
the following resolution by a vote of 114 to 66 : " Resolved, That the 
Committee on the District of Columbia be instructed to inquire into the 
expediency of providing by law for the gradual abolition of slavery 
within the District, in such manner that the interests of no individual 
shall be injured thereby." Among those who voted in the affirmative 
were Messrs. Barney of Md., Armstrong of Va., A. H. Shepperd of 
N. C, Blair of Tenn., Chilton and Lyon of Ky., Johns of Delaware, 
and others from slave states. 

2. It has been conceded directly, or impliedly, by all the com- 
mittees on the District of Columbia that have reported on the subject. 
In a report of the committee on the District, Jan. 11, 1837, by their 
chairman, Mr. Powell of Virginia, there is the following declaration : 
'' The Congress of the United States, has by the constitution exclusive 
jurisdiction over the District, and has power upon this subject, {slavery) 



17 

as upon all other subjects of legislation, to exercise unlimited discre- 
tion." Reps, of Comms. 2d Session, 19th Cong. v. I. No. 43. In 
February, 1829, the committee on the District, Mr. Alexander of 
Virginia, Chairman, in their report pursuant to Mr. Miner's resolu- 
tions, recognize a contingent abolition proceeding upon the consent of 
the people. In December, 1831, the committee on the District, Mr. 
Doddridge of Virginia, Chairman, reported, "That until the adjoining 
states act on the subject (slavery) it would he (not unconstitutional 
but) unwise and impolitic, if not unjust, for Congress to interfere." 
In April, 1836, a special committee on abolition memorials reported 
the following resolutions by iheir Chairman, Mr. Pinckney of South 
Carolina : " Resolved, That Congress possesses no constitutional 
authority to interfere in any way with the institution of slavery in any 
. of the states of this confederacy." 

" Resolved, That Congress ought not to interfere in any way with 
slavery in the District of Columbia." " Ought not to interfere," care- 
fully avoiding the phraseology of the first resolution, and thus in effect 
conceding the constitutional power. In a widely circulated " Address 
to the electors of the Charleston District," Mr. Pmckney is thus de- 
nounced by his own constituents : " He has proposed a resolution 
vi^hich is received by the plain common sense of the whole country as 
a concession that Congress has authority to abolisli slavery in the 
District of Columbia." 

3. It has been conceded by the citizens of the District. A petition 
for the gradual abolition of slavery in the District, signed by nearly 
eleven hundred of its citizens, w^as presented to Congress, March 24, 
1837. Among the signers to this petition, were Chief Justice Cranch, 
Judge Van Ness, Judge Morsel, Prof. J. M. Staughton, Rev. Dr. 
Balch, Rev. Dr. Keith, John M. Munroe, and a large number of the 
most influential inhabitants of the District. Mr. Dickson, of New 
York, asserted on the floor of Congress in 1835, that the signers of 
this petition owned more than half of the property in the District. 
The accuracy of this statement has never been questioned. 

This power has been conceded by grand- juries of the District. 
The grand jury of the county of Alexandria, at the March term 1802, 
presented the domestic slave trade as a grievance, and said, " We 
consider these grievances demanding legislative redress." Jan. 19, 
1829, Mr. Alexander, of Virginia, presented a representation of the 
grand jury in the city of Washington, remonstrating against " any 
measure for the abolition of slavery within said District, unless ac- 
companied by measures for the removal of the emancipated from the 
same ;" thus, not only conceding the power to emancipate slaves, but 
affirming an additional power, that of excluding them when free. See 
JournalH. R. 1828-9, p. 174. 

4. This power has been conceded hy State Legislatures. In 1828 
the Legislature of Pennsylvania instructed their Senators in Congress 
*' to procure, if practicable, the passage of a law to abolish slavery 
in the District of Columbia." Jan. 28, 1829, the House of As.semblv 



18 

of New York passed a resolution, that their '* Senators in Congress 
be instructed to make every possible exertion to eifect the passage of 
a law for the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia." In 
February, 1837, the Senate of Massachusetts " Resolved, That Con- 
gress having exclusive legislation in the District of Columbia, poss'-ss 
the right to abolish slavery and the slave trade therein, and that the 
early exercise of such right is demanded by the enlightened sentiment 
of the civilized world, by the principles of the revolution, and by hu- 
manity." The House of Representatives passed the following reso- 
lution at the same session : " Resolved, That Congress having exclu- 
sive legislation in the District of Columbia, possess the right to abolish 
slavery in said District, and that its exercise should only be restrained 
by a regard to the public good." 

November 1, 1837, the Legislature of Vermont, Resolved, that 
Congress have the full power by the constitution to abolish slavery 
and the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and in the territories." 
The Legislature of Vermont passed in substance the same resolution, 
at its session in 1836. 

May 30, 1836, a committee of the Pennsylvania Legislature re- 
ported the following resolution : " Resolved, That Congress does pos- 
sess the constitutional power, and it is expedient to abolish slavery 
and the slave trade within the District of Columbia." 

In January, 1836, the Legislature of South CaroUna " Resolved, 
That we should consider the abolition of slavery in the District of Co- 
lumbia as a violation of the rights of the citizens of that District derived 
from the implied conditions on which that territory was ceded to the 
General Government." Instead of denying the constitutional power, 
they virtually admit its existence, by striving to smother it under an 
implication. In February, 1836, the Legislature of North Carolina 
" Resolved, That, although by the Constitution all legislative power 
over the District of Columbia is vested in the Congress of the United 
States, yet we would deprecate any legislative action on the part of 
that body towards liberating the slaves of that District, as a breach of 
faith towards those States by whom the territory was originally ceded, 
and will regard such interference as the first step towards a general 
emancipation of the slaves of the South." Here is a full concession 
of the power. February 2, 1836, the Virginia Legislature passed 
unanimously the following resolution : " Resolved, by the General 
Assembly of Virginia, that the following article be proposed to the 
several states of this Union, and to Congress, as an amendment of tho 
Constitution of the United States: 'The powers of Congress shall not 
be so construed as to authorize the passage of any law for the eman- 
cipation of slaves in the District of Columbia, without the consent of 
the individual proprietors thereof, unless by the sanction of the Legis- 
latures of Virginia and Maryland, and under such conditions as they 
shall by law prescribie.'" 

Fifty years after the formation of the United States constitution the 
states are solemnly called upon by the Virginia Legislature, to amend 



19 

that instrument by a clause asserting that, in the grant to Congress of 
"■ exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever" over the District, the 
" case" of slavery is not included ! ! What could have dictated such 
a resolution but the conviction that the power to abolish slavery is an 
irresistible interference from the constitution as it is. The fact that 
the same legislature passed afterward a resolution, though by no 
means unanimously, that Congress does not possess the power, abates 
not a tittle of the testimony in the first resolution. March 23d, 1824, 
" Mr. Brown presented the resolutions of the General Assembly of 
Ohio, recommending to Congress the consideration of a system for 
the gradual emancipation of persons of color held in servitude in 
the United States." On the same day, " Mr. Noble, of Indiana, com- 
municated a resolution from the legislature of that state, respecting 
the gradual emancipation of slaves within the United States." Jour- 
nal of the United States Senate, for 1824-6, p. 231. 

The Ohio and Indiana resolutions, by taking for granted the^e7ie- 
ral power of Congress over the subject of slavery, do virtually assert 
its special power within its exclusive jurisdiction. 

5. The power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, has 
been conceded by bodies of citizens in the slave states. The petition 
of eleven hundred citizens of the District of Columbia, in 1827, has 
been already mentioned. " March 5, 1830, Mr. Washington present- 
ed a memorial of inhabitants of the county of Frederick, in the state 
of Maryland, praying that provision may be made for the gradual abo- 
lition of slavery in the District of Columbia." Journal H. R. 1829 
—30, p. 358. 

March 30, 182S. Mr. A. H. Shepperd, of North Carolina, present- 
ed a memorial of citizens of that state, " praying Congress to take 
measures for the entire abolition of slavery in the District of Colum- 
bia." Journal H. R. 1829—30, p. 379. 

January 14, 1822. Mr. Rhea, of Tennessee, presented a memo- 
rial of citizens of that state, praying " that provision may be made, 
whereby all slaves which may hereafter be born in the District of Co- 
lumbia, shall be free at a certain period of their lives." Journal H. 
R. 1821—22, p. 142. 

December 13, 1824. Mr. Saunders of North Carolina, presented 
a memorial of citizens of that state, praying '* that measures may 
be taken for the gradual abolition of slavery in the United States. 
Journal H. R. 1824—25, p. 27. 

December 16, 1 828. " Mr. Barnard presented the memorial of the 
American Convention for promoting the abolition of slavery, held in 
Baltimore, praying that slavery may be abolished in the District of 
Columbia." Journal U. S. Senate, 1828—29, p. 24. 

6. Distinguished statesmen and jurists in the slaveholding states, 
have conceded the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District. 
The testimony of Messrs. Doddridge, Powell, and Alexander, of Vir- 
ginia, Chief Justice Cranch, and Judges Morsell and Van Ness, of the 
District, has already been given. In the debate in Congress on the 

3 



26 

memorial of tlie Society of Friends, in 1790, Mr. Madison, in Sj)eak- 
ing of the territories of the United States, explicitly declared, from liis 
own knowledge of the views of the members of the convention that 
framed the constitution, as well as from the obvious import of its terms, 
that in the territories '' Congress have certainly the power to regulate 
the subject of slavery." Congress can have no more power over tlie 
territories than that of " exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever," 
consequently, according to Mr. Madison, " it has certainly the power 
to regulate the subject of slavery in tlie" District. In March, 1816, 
John Randolph introduced a resolution for putting a stop to the do- 
mestic slave trade within the District. December 13, 1827, Mr. Bar- 
ney, of Maryland, presented a memorial for abolition in the District, 
and moved that it be printed. Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, ob- 
jected to the printing, but " expressly admitted the right of Congress 
to grant to the people of the District any measures which they might 
deem necessaiy to free themselves from the deplorable evil." — (See 
letter of Mr. Claiborne, of Mississippi, to his constituents, published in 
the Washington Globe, May 9, 1836.) The sentiments of Henry 
Clay on the subject are well known. In a speech before the U. S. 
Senate, in 1836, he declared the power of Congress to abolish slavery 
in the District " unquestionable." Messrs. Blair, of Tennessee, Chi), 
ton, Lyon, and Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, A. H. Shepperd, 
of North Carolina, Messrs. Armstrong and Smyth, of Virginia, Messrs. 
Dorsey, Arclier, and Barney, of Maryland, and Johns, of Delaware, 
"with numerous others from slave states, have asserted the power of 
Congress to abolish slavery in the District. In the speech of Mr. 
Smyth, of Virginia, on the Missouri question, January 28, 1820, he 
says on this point : " If the future freedom of the blacks is your real 
object, and not a mere pretence, why do you not begin here 1 Within 
the ton miles square, you have undoubted power to exercise exclusive 
legislation. Produce a bill to emancipate the slaves in the District of 
Columbia , ov, if you prefer it, to emancipate those born hereafter." 

To this may be added the testimony of the present Vice President 
of the United States, Hon. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. In a 
speech before the United States' Senate, February 1, 1820, (National 
Intelligencer, April 29, 1820,) he says : "Congress has the express 
power stipulated by the Constitution, to exercise exclusive legislation 
over this Distsict often miles square. , Here slavery is sanctioned by 
law. In the District of Columbia, containing a population of 30,000 
souls, and probably as many slaves as the whole territory of Missouri, 

THE POWER OF TROVIDING FOR THEIR EMANCIPATION RESTS WITH 

Congress alone. Why, then, let me ask, Mr. President, why all this 
sensibility — this commiseration — this heart-rending sympathy for the 
slaves of Missouri, and this cold insensibility, tDis eternal apathy, 
towards the slaves in the District of Columbia ?" 

It is quite unnecessary to add, that the most distinguished northern 
statesmen of both political parties, have always affirmed the power of 
Congress to abolish slavery in the District. President Van Buren in 
his letter of March G, 1836, to a committee of gentlemen in North. 



21 

Carolina, says, '* I would not, from the light now before me, feel my- 
self safe in pronouncing that Congress does not possess the power of 
abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia." This declaration 
of the President is consistent with his avowed sentiments touching the 
Missouri question, on which he coincided with such men as Daniel D. 
Tompkins, De Witt Clinton, and others, whose names are a host.* 
It is consistent also, with his recommendation in his late message on 
the 5lh of last month, in which, speaking of the District, he strongly 
urges upon Congress " a. thorough and careful revision of its local 
government," speaks of the '' entire dependence" of the people of the 
District " upon Congress," recommends that a " uniform system of lo- 
cal government" be adopted, and adds, that " although it was selected 
as the seat of the General Government, the site of its public edifices, 
the depository of its archives, and the residence of officers intrusted 
with large amounts of public property, and the management of public 
business, yet it never has been subjected to, or received, that special 
and comprehensive legislation which these circumstances peculiarly 
demanded." 

The tenor of Senator Tallmadge's speech on the right of petition, 
in the last Congress, and of Mr. Webster's on the reception of aboli- 
tion memorials, may be t^U\;en as universal exponents of the sentiments 
of northern statesmen as to the power of Congress to abolish slavery 
in the District of Columbia, 

After presenting this array of evidence, direct testimony to show 
that the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, has al- 
ways till recently been univsrsallij conceded, is perhaps quite super- 
fluous. We subjoin, however, the following : 

The Vice-President of the United States in his speech on the Mis- 
souri question, quoted above, after contending that the restriction of 
slavery in Missouri would be unconstitutional, adds, " But I am at a 
loss to conceive why gentlemen sliould arouse all their sympathies 
upon this occasion, when they permit them to lie dormant upon the 
same subject, in relation to otiier sections of country, in which their 
POWER COULD NOT BE QUESTIONED." Then follows immediately the 
assertion of congressional power to abolish slavery in the District, as 



* Mr. Van Buren, when a member of the Senate of New-York, voted for 
the following preamble and resolutions, which passed unanimously : — Jan. 28th, 
1820. " Whereas, the inhibiting the further extension of slavery in the United 
States, is a subject of deep concern to the people of this state : and whereas, we 
consider slavery as an evi! much to be deplored, and that every constitutional 
barrier should /je interposed to prevent its furt/ier extension : and that the consti- 
tution of the United States clearly gives congress Itie riglit to require new states, 
not comprised within the original boundary of the United States, to make the 
prolnbition of slavery a condition of their admission into the Union : Therefore, 

Resolved, That our Senators be instructed, and our members of Congress 
be requested, to oppose the admission as a state into the Union, of any territory 
not comprised as aforesaid, without making Ihe prohibition nf slavery therein 
an indispensable condition of admission. 



22 

already quoted. In the speech of Mr. Smytii, of Va., also quoted 
above, he declares tlie power of Congress to abolish slavery in the 
District to be " undoubted." 

Mr. Sutherland, of Pennsylvania, in a speech in the' House of Re- 
presentatives, on the motion to print Mr. Pinckney's Report, is thus 
reported in the Washington Globe, of May 9th, '36. "He replied to 
the remark that the report conceded that Congress had a right to 
legislate upon the subject in the District of Columbia, and said that 

SUCH A RIGHT HAD NEVER BEEX, TILL RECENTLY, DENIED." 

The American Quarterly Review, published at Philadelphia, with 
a large circulation and list of contributors in the slave states, holds 
the following language in the September No. 1833, p. 55 : " Under 
this ' exclusive jurisdiction,' granted by the constitution, Congress has 
power to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of Colum- 
bia. It would hardly be necessary to state this as a distinct proposi- 
tion, had it not been occasionally questi6ned. The truth of the asser- 
tion, however, is too obvious to admit of argument — and we believe 

HAS NEVER BEEN DISPUTED BY TEKSONS WHO ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE 
CONSTITUTION." 

Finally — an explicit, and unexpected admission, tlmt an ^^over- 
whelming majorihj " of the f resent Congress concede the power to 
abolish slavery in the District, has just been made by a member of 
Congress from South Carolina, in a letter published in the Charleston 
Mercury of Dec. 27, well known as the mouth-piece of Mr. Calhoun. 
The following is an extract : 

'■ The time has arrived when we must have new guarantees under 
the constitution, or the Union must be dissolved. Our views of the 
constitution are not those of the majority. An overwhelming majority 
think that hy the constitution, Congress may alolish shivery in the Dis- 
trict of Cohwibia — may abolish the slave trade between the States ; thai 
is, it may ■prohibit their being carried out of the State in which they are 
— and jvohibit it in all the territories, Florida among them. They think, 
NOT WITHOUT STRONG REASONS, that the jwwer of Congress extends to 
all of these subjects." 

In anot'ner letter, the same correspondent says : 

" The fact is, it is vain to attempt, as thr constitution is now, 
to keep the question of slavery out of the Halls of Congress, — until, by 
some decisive action, we compel silence, or alter the constitution, 
agitation and insult is our eternal fate in the confederacy." 

objections TO the foregoing CONCLUSIONS CONSIDERED. 

We now proceed to notice briefly the main arguments that ,iave 
been employed in Congress and elsewhere against the power of Con- 
gress to abolish slavery in the District. One of the most plausible, is 
that " the conditions on which Maryland and Virginia ceded the District 
to the United States, would be violated, if Congress should abolish 
slavery there." The reply to this is, that Congress had no power to 



23 

accept a cession coupled with conditions restricting the power given 
it by the constitution. Nothing short of a convention of tlie states, 
and an alteration of the constitution, abridging its grant of power, 
could have empowered Congress to accept a territory on any other 
conditions than that of exercising *' exclusive legislation, in all cases 
whatsoever," over it. 

To show the futility of the objection, here follow the acts of ces- 
sion. The cession of Maryland was made in November, 1788, and 
is as follows : " An act to cede to Congress a district of ten miles 
square in this state for the seat of the government of the United States." 
" Be it enacted, by the General Assembly of Maryland, that the 
representatives of this state in the House of Representatives of the 
Congress of the United States, appointed to assemble at New-York, 
on the first Wednesday of March next, be, and they are hereby 
authorized and required on the behalf of this state, to cede to the Con- 
gress of the United States, any district in this state, not exceeding ten 
miles square, which the Congress may fix upon, and accept for the 
seat of government of the United States." Laws of Maryland, vol. 
2, chap. 46. 

The cession from Virginia was made by act of the Legislature of 
that State on the 3d of December, 1788, in the following words : 

" Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That a tract of country, 
not exceeding ten miles square, or any lesser quantity, to be located 
within the limits of the State, and in any part thereof, as Congress 
may, by law, direct, shall be, and the same is hereby for ever ceded 
and relinquished to the Congress and Government of the United States, 
in full and absolute right, and exclusive jurisdiction, as well of soil, 
us of persons residing or to reside thereon, pursuant to the tenor and 
effect of the eighth section of the first article of the government of 
the constitution of the United States." 

But were there no provisos to these acts ? The Maryland act 
had no7ie. Tiiat part of the District therefore, which includes t!ie 
cities of Washington and Georgetown, can lay claim to nothing with 
which to ward otF the power of Congress. The Virginia act had this 
proviso : " Sect. 2. Provided, that nothing herein contained, shall bo 
construed to vest in the United States any right of property in the so//, 
or to affect the rights of individuals therein, otherwise than the same 
shall or maybe transferred by such individuals to the United States." 
This specification touching the soil was merely definitive and ex- 
planatory of that clause in the act of cession, "full and absolute right." 
Instead of restraining the power of Congress en slavery and other 
subjects, it even gives it wider scope ; for exceptions to pfir/5 of a 
rule, give double confirmation to those parts not embniced in the 
exceptions. IC it was the design of the proviso to restrict congres- 
sional action on the subject o{ slavery, why is the soil alone specified? 
As legal instruments are not paragons of economy in words, might 
not " John Doe," out of Ills abundance, and without spoiling iiis st\ it-, 
havt! afforded an additional word — at least a hint — that slavery was 



24 

meant, though nothing was said about It ? The subject must have 
been too " delicate," even for the most distant allusion ! The mystery 
of silence is solved ! ! 

But again, Maryland and Virginia, in their acts of cession, declare 
them to be " in pursuance of" that clause of the constitution which 
gives to Congress " exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over" 
the ten miles square — thus, instead of resti'icting that clause, both 
States gave an express and decided confirmation of it. Now, their 
acts of cession either accorded with that clause of the constitution, 
or they conflicted with it. If they conflicted with it, accepting the 
cessions was a violation of the constitution. If they accorded, the 
objector has already had his answer. The fact that Congress ac- 
cepted the cessions, proves that in its view their terms did not conflict 
with the constitutional grant of " power to exercise exclusive legisla- 
tion in all cases whatsoever over such District." The inquiry whether 
these acts of cession were consistent or inconsistent with the United 
States constitution, is totally irrelevant to the question at issue. What 
saith the constitution ? That is the question. Not, what saith Vir- 
ginia, or Maryland, or — equally to the point — John Bull ! If Mary- 
land and Virginia had been the authorized interpreters of the consti- 
tution for the Union, these acts of cession could hardly have been 
magnified more than they were by Messrs. Garland and Wise in the 
last Congress. A true understanding of the constitution can be had, 
forsooth, only by holding it up in the light of Maryland and Virginia 
legislation ! 

We are told, again, that those States would not have ceded the 
District if they had supposed the constitution gave Congress power 
to abolish slavery in it. 

This comes with an ill grace from Maryland and Virginia. They 
knew the constitution. They were parties to it. They had sifted it, 
clause by clause, in their State conventions. They had weighed its 
words in the balance — they had tested them as by fire ; and finally, 
after long pondering, they adopted the constitution. And afterioard, 
self-moved, they ceded the ten miles square, and declared the cession 
made "in pursuance of" that oft-cited clause, "Congress shall have 
power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over 
such District," &c. And now verily " they would not have ceded if 
ihey had supposed!" &c. Cede it they did, and " in full and abso- 
lute right both of soil and persons." Congress accepted the cession — 
state power over the District ceased, and congressional power over it 
commenced — and now, the sole question to be settled is, the amount of 
power over the District, lodged in Congress by the constitution. The 
constitution — the constitution — that is the point. Maryland and 
Virginia "suppositions" must be potent suppositions, to abrogate a clause 
in the United States Constitution ! That clause either gives Congress 
power to abolish slavery in the District, or it does not — and that point 
is to be settled, not by state " suppositions," nor state usages, nor 
state legislation, but hy the terms of the clause themselves. 



25 

Southern members of Congress, in the recent discussions, have con- 
ceded the power of a contingent aboUtion in the District, by suspend- 
ing it upon the consent of the people. Such a doctrine from declaim- 
ers like IMessrs. Alford, of Georgia, and Walker, of Mississippi, would 
excite no surprise ; but that ifc should be honored with the endorse- 
ment of such men as ?vlr. Rives and Mr. Calhoun, is quite unaccount- 
able. Are attributes of sovereignty mere creatures of contingency I 
Is delegated authority mere conditional permission ? Is a conslitu. 
tional poicer to be exercised by those who hold it, only by popular 5i</'- 
ferance? Must it lie helpless at the pool of public sentiment, waiting 
the gracious troubling of its waters? Is it a lifeless corpse, save only 
when popular " consent" deigns to puffbreath into its nostrils ? Besides, 
if the consent of the people of the District be necessary, the consent 
of the whole people must be had — not that of a majority, however 
large. Majorities, to be authoritative, must be legal — anJ a legal ma- 
jority without legislative power, right of representation, or even the 
electoral franchise, would be an anomaly. In the District of Colum- 
bia, such a thing as a majority in a legal sense is unknown to law. 
To talk of the power of a majority, or the will of a majority there, is 
mere mouthing. A majority ? Then it has an authoritative will 
— and an organ to make it known — and an executive to carry it 
into effect — Where are they? We repeat it — if the consent of the 
people of the District be necessary, the consent of every one is neces- 
sary — and universal consent will come only with the Greek Kalends 
and a " perpetual motion." A single individual might thus perpetuate 
slavery in defiance of the expressed will of a whole people. The 
most common form of this fallacy is given by Mr. Wise, of Virginia, 
in his speech, February 16, 1835, in which he denied the power of 
Congress to abolish slavery in the District, unless the inhabitants 
owning slaves petitioned for it ! ! Southern members of Congress at 
the present session ring changes almost daily upon the same fallacy. 
What ! pray Congress to use a power which it has not ? " It is re- 
quired of a man according to what he hath,'' saith the Scripture. I 
commend Mr. Wise to Paul for his ethics. Would that he had got 
his logic of him ! If Congress does not possess the power, why taunt 
it with its weakness, by asking its exercise? Why mock it by de- 
manding impossibilities? Petitioning, according to Mr. Wise, is, in 
matters of legislation, omnipotence itself; the very source of all consti- 
tutional power ; for, asking Congress to do what it cannot do, gives it 
the power — to pray the exercise of a power that is not, creates it. A 
beautiful theory ! Let us work it both ways. If to petition for the 
exercise of a power that is not, creates it — to petition against the exer- 
cise of a power that is, annihilates it. As southern gentlemen arc 
partial to summary processes, pray, sirs, try the virtue of your own 
recipe on " exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever ;" a better sub- 
ject for experiment and test of the prescription could not be had. But 
if the petitions of the citizens of the District give Congress the right to 
abolish slavery, they impose the dutt/ ; if they confer constitutional 



26 

authority, they create constitutional obhgation. If Congress may 
aboHsh because of an expression of their will, it must abolish at the 
bidding of that will. If the people of the District are a source of pow- 
er to Congress, their expressed toill has the force of a constitutional 
provision, and has the same binding power upon the National Legisla- 
ture. To make Congress dependent on the District for authority, is 
to make it a subject of its authority, resti'aining the exercise of its own 
discretion, and sinking it into a mere organ of the District's will. We 
proceed to another objection. 

" The southern states would not have ratified the constitution, if 
they had supposed that it gave this power." It is a sufficient answer 
to this objection, that the northern states would not have ratified it, if 
they had supposed that it toithheld the power. If " suppositions" are 
to take the place of the constitution — coming from both sides, they 
neutralize each other. To argue a constitutional question by guessing 
at the "suppositions" that might have been made by the parties to it, 
would find small favor in a court of 'aw. But even a desperate shift 
is some easement when sorely pushed. If this question is to be settled 
by "suppositions," suppositions shall be forthcoming, and that without 
stint. 

First, then, I affirm that the North ratified the constitution, " sup. 
posing" that slavery had begun to wax old, and would speedily vanish 
away, and especially that the abolition of the slave trade, which by the 
constitution was to be surrendered to Congress after twenty years, 
would cast it headlong. 

Would the North have adopted the constitution, giving three-fifths 
of the "slave pi'operty" a representation, if it had " supposed" that 
the slaves would have increased from half a million to two milhons and 
a half by 183S — and that the census of 1840 would give to the slave 
states, yO representatives of '• slave property V 

If they had "supposed" that this representation would have con- 
trolled the legislation of the government, and carried against the 
North every question vital to its interests, would Alexander Hamil- 
ton, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Elbridge Gerry, William 
Livingston, John Langdon, and Rufus King have been such mad- 
men, as to sign the constitution, and tlie Northern States such sui- 
cides as to ratif}^ it ? Every self-preserving instinct would have shriek- 
ed at such an infatuate immolation. . At the adoption of the United 
States constitution, slavery was regarded as a fast waning system. 
This conviction was universal. Washington, Jefferson, Patrick 
Henry, Grayson, St. George Tuckei, Madison, Wythe, fPendleton, 
Lee, Blair, Mason, Page, Parker, Edmund Randolph, Iredell, Spaight, 
Ramsey, William Pinckney, Luther Martin, James McHenry, Sam- 
uel Chuso, and nearly all the illustrious names south of the Potomac, 
proclaimed it before the sun, that the days of slavery were beginning 
to be numbered. A reason urged in thefcconvention that formed the 
United States constitution, why the word slave should not be used in 



27 

it, was, that when slavery should cease there might remain upon the 
National Charter no record that it had ever been. (See speech of 
Mr. Burrill, of R. I., on the Missouri question.) 

I now pi'oceed to show by testimony, that at the date of the Uni- 
ted States constitution, and for several years before and after that 
period, slavery was rapidly on the wane ; that the AmericAn Rev- 
olution with the great events preceding accompanying, and follow- 
ing it, had wrought an immense and almost universal change in the pub- 
lic sentiment of the nation on the subject, powerfully impelling it toward 
the entire abolition of the system — and that it was the general belief 
that measures for its abolition throughout the Union, would be com- 
menced by the individual States generally before the lapse of many 
years. A great mass of testimony establishing this position is at 
hand and might be presented, but narrow space, little time, the pa- 
tience of readers, and the importance of speedy publication, counsel 
brevity. Let the following proofs suffice. First, a few dates as points 
of observation. 

The first general Congress met in 1774. The revolutionary war 
commenced in '75. Independence was declared in '76. The articles 
of confederacy were adopted by the thirteen states in '78- Inde- 
pendence acknowledged in '83. The convention for forming the U. 
S. constitution was held in '87, the state conventions for considering 
it in '87, and '88. The first Congress under the constitution in '89. 

Dr. Rush, of Pennsylvania, one of the signers of the Declaration 
of Independence, in a letter to the celebrated Granville Sharpe, May 
1, 1773, says : " A spirit of humanity and religion begins to awaken 
in several of the colonies in favor of the poor negroes. The clergy 
begin to bear a public testimony against this violation of the laws of 
nature and Christianity. Great events have been brought about by 
small beginnings. Anthony Benezet stood alone a feio years ago in 
opposing negro slavery in Philadelphia, and now three-fourths of 

THE PROVINCE AS WELL AS OF THE CITY CRY OUT AGAINST IT." (StU- 

art's Life of Sharpe, p. 21.) 

In the preamble to the act prohibiting the importation of slaves in- 
to Rhode Island, June, 1774, is the following : " Whereas, the inhab- 
itants of America are generally engaged in the preservation of their own 
rights and liberties, among which that of personal freedom must be 
considered the greatest, and as those who are desirous of enjoying all 
the advantages of liberty themselves, should be willing to extend per- 
sonal liberty to others, therefore," &c. 

October 20, 1774, the Continental Congress passed the following : 
" We, for ourselves and the inhabitants of the several colonies whom 
we represent, ^n«/!/ agree and associate under the sacred ties of vir- 
tue, honor, and love of our country, as follows : 

" 2d Article. We will neither import nor purchase any slaves im- 
ported after the first day of December next, after which time we will 
wholly discontinue the slave trade, and we will neither be concerned 

4 



28 

in k ourf^olves, nor will wo hire our vessels, nor r;('ll our commodities 
or niimufactures to those wl;o are concerned in it." 

Tlic Continental Congress, in 1775, setting forth tlie causes and 
the necessity for taking up arms, say : ♦' //' it were jjossible for men 
who exercise their reason to believe that the Divine Author of our 
existence intended a part of the human race to hold an ahsoluie prop- 
erty in, and unbounded potver over others, marked out by infinite good- 
ness and wisdom as the objects of a legal domination, never rightfully 
resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these col- 
onies miglit at least require from the Parliamcntof Great Britain some 
evidence that this dreadful authority over tliem has been granted to 
that body." 

In 1776, the celebrated Dr. Hopkins, then at the head of New- 
England divines, published a pamphlet entitled, " An Address to the 
owners of negro slaves in the American colonies," trom which the fol- 
lowing is an extract : " The conviction of the unjustifiableness of this 
practice (slavery) has been increasing, and greatly spreading of late, 
und many who iiave had slaves, have found themselves so unable to 
justify their own conduct in holding them in bondage, as to be in- 
duced to set them at liberty, ]May this conviction soon reach every 
owner of slaves in JVortA ^mer/fa / ******* Slavery 
is, in every instance, wrong, unrighteous, and oppressive — a very great 
and crying sin — there being nothing of the kind equal to it on the face 
of the earth.''' 

The same year the American Congress issued a solemn manifesto 
to the world. These were its first words : " We hold these truths to 
be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed 
by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these 
arc life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Once, these were 
words of power ; noio, " a rhetorical flourish." 

The celebrated Patrick Henry of Virginia, in a letter, of Jan. 18, 
1773, to Robert Pleasants, afterwards president of the Virginia Aboli- 
tion Society, says : " Believe me, I shall honor the Quakers for their 
noble etroits to abolish slavery. It is a debt we owe to the purity of 
our religion to show that it is at variance witii that law that warrants 
slavery. I exhort you to persevere in so worthy a resolution." 

\\\ 1779, the Continental Congress ordered a pamphlet to be pub- 
lished, entitled, " Observations on the American llevolution," from 
which the following is an extract : " The gn.at principle (of govern- 
)nent) is and ever will remain in force, that men are by nature free; 
as accountable to him that made them, they must be so ; and so long 
as we have any idea of divine justice, we must associate that of hu- 
man freedom. Whether men can part with their liberty, is among 
the qiic;stions which have exercised the ablest writers ; but it is conce- 
ded on all hands, that the right to be free can nkveu be alienated — 
still less is it practicable for one generation to mortgage the privileges 
of another." 



29 

Extract from the Pennsylvania act for the Abolition of Slavery, 
passed March 1, 1780: * * * « Wc conceive that it is our duty, 
and we rejoice that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that free- 
dom to others which has been extended to us. Weaned by a long 
course of experience from those narrow prejudices and partialities we 
had imbibed, we find our hearts enlarged with kindness and benevo- 
ience towards men of all conditions and nations : * * * Therefore 
be it enacted, that no child born hereafter be a slave," &c. 

Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, written just beflore the close of 
the Revolutionary War, says : " I think a change already perceptible 
since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is 
abating, that of the slave is rising from the dust, his condition mollify, 
ing, the way I hope preparing under the auspices of heaven, for a to- 
tal EMANCIPATION, and that this is disposed, in the order of events, to 
be with the consent of the masters, rather than by their extirpation." 

In a letter to Dr. Price, of London, who had just published a 
pamphlet in favor of the abolition of slavery, Mr. Jefferson, then Min- 
ister at Paris, (August 7, 1785,) says : " From the mouth to the head 
of the Chesapeake, the hulk of the people will approve of your pamphlet 
in theory, and it will find a respectable minority ready to adopt it in 
practice — a minority which, for weight and worth of character, pre- 
ponderates against the greater nnmber.''^ Speaking of Virginia, he 
says : "This is the next state to which we may turn our eyes for the 
interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and oppression, 
— a conflict in which the sacred side is gaining daily keckuits. 
Be not, therefore discouraged — what you have written will do a great 
deal of good; and could you still trouble yourself with our welfare, no 
man is more able to give aid to the laboring side. The College of 
William and Mary, in Williamsburg, since the remodelling of its plan, 
is the place where are collected together all the young men of Virgi- 
nia, under preparation for public life. They are there under the direc- 
tion (most of them) of a Mr. Wythe, one of the most virtuous of char- 
acters, and ivhose sentiments on the subject of slavery are unequivocal. 
I am satisfied, if you could resolve to address an exhortation to those 
young men with all that eloquence of which you are master, that its 
influence on the future decision of this important question would he great, 
perhaps decisive. Thus, you see, that so far from thinking you have 
cause to repent of what you have done, I wish i/ou to do more, a.nd wish 
it on an assurance of its efect." — Jefferson's Posthumous Works, vol. 
1, p 268. 

In 1786, John Jay, afterward Chief Justice of the United States, 
drafted and signed a petition to the Legislature of New York, on the 
subject of slavery, beginning vvuh these words : 

"Your memorialists being deeply affected by the situation of those, 
who, although free by the Laws of God, are held in slavery by the 
laws of the State," &c. 

This memorial bore also the signatures of the celebrated Alex- 
ander Hamilton ; Robert R. Livingston, afterward Secretary of Fo- 



30 

reign Affairs of the United States, and Cliancellor of the State of 
New York ; James Duane, Mayor of the City of New York, and 
many others of the most eminent individuals in the State. 

In the preamble of an instrument, by which Mr. Jay emancipated 
a slave in 1784, is the following passage : 

"Whereas, the children of men are by nature equally free, and 
cannot, without injustice, be either reduced to or held in slavery." 

In his letter while Minister at Spain, in 1786, he says, speaking 
of the abolition of slavery : " Till America comes into this measure, 
her prayers to heaven will be impious. This is a strong expression, 
but it is just. I believe God governs the world ; and I believe it to 
be a maxim in his, as in our court, that those who ask for equity 
oicght to do it." 

In 1785, the New York Manumission Society was formed. 
John Jay was chosen its first President, and held the office five 
years. Alexander Hamilton was its second President, and after 
holding the office one year, resigned upon his removal to Philadelphia 
as Secretary of the United States' Treasury. In 1787, the Pennsyl- 
vania Abolition Society was formed. Benjamin Franklin, warm from 
the discussions of the convention that formed the United States con- 
stitution, was chosen President, and Benjamin Rush, Secretary — both 
signers of the Declaration of Independence. In 1789, the Maryland 
Abolition Society was formed. Among its officers were Samuel 
Chace, Judge of the United States Supreme Court, and Luther Martin, 
a member of the convention that formed the United States constitu- 
tion. In 1790, the Connecticut Abolition Society was formed. The 
first President was Rev. Dr. Stiles, President of Yale College, and 
the Secretary, Simeon Baldwin, (the late Judge Baldwin of New 
Haven.) In 1791, this Society sent a memorial to Congress, from 
which the following is an extract : 

"From a sober conviction of the unrighteousness of slavery, your 
petitioners have long beheld, with grief, our fellow men doomed to 
perpetual bondage, in a country which boasts of her freedom. Your 
petitioners are fully of opinion, that calm reflection will at last con- 
vince the world, that the whole system of African slavery is unjust 
in its nature — impolitic in its principles — and, in its consequences, 
ruinous to the industry and enterprise of the citizens of these States. 
From a conviction of these truths, your petitioners were led, by 
motives, we conceive, of general philanthropy, to associate ourselves 
for the protection and assistance of this unfortunate part of our fellow 
men ; and, though this Society has been Za^c/y established, it has now 
become generally extensive through this state, and, we fully believe, 
embraces, on this subject, the sentiments of a large majority of its 
citizens." 

The same year the Virginia Abolition Society was formed. This 
Society, and the Maryland Society, had auxiliaries in ditferent parts 
of those States. Both societies sent up memorials to Congress. The 
memorial of the Virginia Society is headed — " The memorial of the 



31 

Virginia Society, for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, &c." The 
following is an extract : 

" Your memorialists, fully believing that ' righteousness exalteth 
a nation,' and that slavery is not only an odious degradation, but an 
outrageous violation of one of the most essential rights of human nature, 
and utterly repugnant to the precejits of the gospel, which breathes 
' peace on earth, good will to men ;' lament that a practice, so incon- 
sistent with true policy and the inalienable rights of men, should 
subsist in so enlightened an age, and among a people professing, that 
all mankind are, by nature, equally eniitled to freedom." 

About the same time a Society was formed in New-Jersey. It 
had an acting committee of five members in each county in the State. 
The following is an extract from the preamble to its constitution : 

" It is our boast, that we live under a government founded on 
principles of justice and reason, wherein life, liberty, and \\\q pursuit 
of happiness, are recognised as the universal rights of men ; and 
whilst we are anxious to preserve these rights to ourselves, and trans- 
mit them inviolate, to our posterity, we abhor that inconsistent, illiberal, 
and interested policy, which withholds those rights from an unfortu- 
nate and degraded class of our fellow creatures." 

Among other distinguished individuals who were efficient officers 
of these Abolition Societies, and delegates from their respective state 
societies, at the annual meetings of the American convention for pro- 
moting the abolition of slavery, were Hon. Uriah Tracy, United 
States' Senator, from Connecticut ; Hon. Zephaniah Swift, Chief Jus- 
tice of the same State ; Hon. Cesar A. Rodney, Attorney General of 
the United States ; Hon. James A. Bayard, United States Senator, from 
Delaware ; Governor Bloomfield, of New Jersey ; Hon. Wm. Rawle, 
the late venerable head of the Philadelphia bar ; Dr. Casper Wistar, 
of Philadelphia ; Messrs. Foster and Tillinghast, of Rhode Island ; 
Messrs. Ridgeley, Buchanan, and Wilkinson, of Maryland ; and 
Messrs. Pleasants, McLean, and Anthony, of Virginia. 

In July, 1787, the old Congress passed the celebrated ordinance, 
abolishing slavery in the northwestern territory, and declaring that 
it should never thereafter exist there. This ordinance was passed 
while the convention that formed the United States constitution was 
in session. At the first session of Congress under the constitution, 
this ordinance was ratified by a special act. Washington, fresh from 
the discussions of the convention, in which more than forty days had 
ieen spent in adjusting the question of slavery, gave it his approval. 
The act passed with only one dissenting voice, (that of Mr. Yates, of 
New- York,) the South equally icith the North avowing the fitness and 
expediency of the measure on general considerations, and indicating 
thus early the line of national policy , to be pursued by the United 
States Government on the subject of slavery. 

In the debates in the North Carolina Convention, Mr. Iredell, 
afterward a Judge of the United States' Supreme Court, said, "TFAcn 
the entire abolition of slavery takes place, it will be an event 



32 

which must be pleasing to every generous mind and every friend 
of human nature." Mr. Galloway said, " I wish to see this abomi- 
nable trade put an end to. I apprehend the clause (touching 
the slave trade) means to bring foricard manumission." Luther 
Martin, of Md., a member of the convention that formed the United 
States constitution, said, " We ought to authorize the General Govern- 
ment to make such regulations as shall be thought most advantageous 
for the gradual abolition of slavery , and the emancipation of the slaves 
which are already in the States." Judge Wilson, of Pennsylvania, 
one of the framers of the constitution, said, in the Pennsylvania con- 
vention of '87, Deb. Pa. Con. p. 303, 156 : " I consider this (the clause 
relative to the slave trade) as laying the foundation for banishing slavery 
out of this country. It will produce the same kind of gradual change 
which was produced in Pennsylvania ; the new states which are to be 
formed will be under the control of Congress in this particular, and 
slaves ivill never be introduced among them. It presents us with the 
pleasing prospect that the rights of mankind will be acknowledged and 
established throughout the Union. Yet the lapse of a {e\w years, and 
Congress will have power to exterminate slavery within our borders." 
In the Virginia convention of '87, Mr. Mason, author of the Virginia 
constitution, said, " The augmentation of slaves weakens the States, 
and such a trade is diabolical in itself, and disgraceful to mankind. 
As much as I value a union of all the states, I would not admit the 
southern states, (i. e., South Carolina and Georgia,) into the union, 
7/nlcss they agree to a discontinuance of this disgraceful trade.''^ 
Mr. Tyler opposed with great power the clause prohibiting the aboli- 
tion of the slave trade till 1808, and said, " My earnest desire is, that 
it shall be handed down to posterity that I oppose this wicked clause." 
Mr. Johnson said, " The principle of emancipation has begun since 
the revolution. Let us do ivhat loe loill, it icill come round." — 
[Deb. Va. Con. p. 463.] Patrick Henry, arguing the power of 
Congress under the United States constitution to abolish slavery in 
the States, said, in the same convention, " Another thing will contri- 
bute to bring this event (the abolition of slavery) about. Slavery is 
detested. We feel its fatal etfccts ; we deplore it with all the pity of 
humanity."— [Z>c6. Va. Con. p. 431.] In the Mass. Con. of ''88, 
Judge Dawes said, " Although slavery is not smitten by an apoplexy, 
yet it has received a mortal tvound, and will die of consumption." — 
[^Deb. Mass. Con. p. 60.] General Heath said that, " Slavery was 
confined to the States now existing, it could not be extended. By their 
ordinance, Congress had declared that the new States should be re- 
publican States, and have no slavery. ^^ — p. 147. 

In the debate in the first Congress, February 11th and 12th, 1789, 
on the petitions of the Society of Friends, and the Pennsylvania Aboli- 
lion Society, Mr. Parker, of Virginia, said, " I hope, Mr. Speaker, the 
petition of these respectable people will be attended to loith all the 
readiness the importance of its object demands ; and I cannot help ex- 
pressing the pleasure I feel in finding so considerable, a ■part of the 



33 

community attending to matters of such a momentous concern to the 
y'wiMre prosper//;/ and happiness of the people of America. I think it 
my duty, as a citizen of the Union, to espouse their cause." 

Mr. Page, of Virginia, (afterward Governor) — " Was in favor of 
the commitment ; he iioped that the designs of tlie respectable memo- 
rialists would not be stopped at the threshold, in order to preclude a 
fair discussion of the prayer of the memorial. With respect to the 
alarm that was apprehended, he conjectured there was none ; but there 
might be just cause, if the memorial was not taken into consideration. 
He placed himself in the case of a slave, and said, that on hearing 
that Congress had refused to listen to the decent suggestions of a respect- 
able part of the community, he should infer, that the general govern- 
ment, /r<7??i which was expected great good toould result to every class of 
citizens, had shut their ears against the voice of humanity, and he 
should despair of any alleviation of the miseries he and his posterity 
liad in prospect ; if any thing could induce him to rebel, it must be a 
stroke like this, impressing on his mind all the horrors of despair. 
But if he was told, that application was made in his behalf, and that 
Congress were willing to hear what could be urged in favor of dis- 
couraging the practice of importing his fellow. wretches, he would 
trust in their justice and humanity, and wait the decision patiently ." 

Mr. Scott, of Pennsylvania : " I cannot, for my part, conceive how 
any person can he said to acquire a property in another ; but enough 
of those who reduce men to the state of transferable goods, or use 
them hke beasts of burden, who deliver them up as the property or 
patrimony of another man. Let us argue on principles countenanced 
by reason, and becoming humanity. 1 do not knoto huio far I might 
go, if 1 was one of the judges of the United States, and those people 
were to come before me and claim their emancipation, but I am sure 
I iDoidd go as far as I could." 

Mr. Burke, of South Carolina, said, " He saio the disposition of the 
House, and he feared it would be referred to a committee, maugre all 
their opposition." 

Mr. Smith, of South Carolina, said, " That on entering into this go- 
vernment, thcy(South Carolina and Georgia) apprehended that the other 
states, not knowing rhe necessity the citizens of the Southern states 
were under to hold this species of property, would, from motives of 
humanity and benevolence, be led to vote for a general emancipation ; 
and had they not seen, that the constitution provided against the effect 
of such a disposition, I may be bold to say, they never would have 
adopted it." 

In the debate, at the same session, Slay ISth, 1789, on the peti- 
tion of the Society of Friends respecting the slave trade, Mr. Parker, 
of Virginia, said, " He hoped Congress would do all that lay in their 
power to restore to huma7i nature its inherent privileges, and if possi- 
ble, wipe otFthe stigma, which America labored under. The incon- 
sistency in our principles, with which we are justly charged shoidd be 
done away, that we may show by our actions the pure beneficence of 



34 

the doctrine we held out to the world in our Declaration of Indepen- 
dence." 

Mr. Jackson, of Georgia, said, " It was the fashion of the day 
TO favor the liberty of the slaves. ***** What is 
to be done for compensation ? Will Virginia set all her negroes free ? 
Will they give up the money they have cost them ; and to whom ? 
TV/ien this practice comes to he tried, then the sound of liberty will 
lose those charms ichich make it grattrful to the ravished ear.^' 

Mr. Madison, of Virginia, — " The dictates of humanity, the princi- 
ples of the people, the national safety and happiness, and prudent polii 
cy, require it of us. The constitution has particularly called our at- 
tention to it. * * * * * * * I conceive the constitution 
in this particular was formed in order that the Government, whilst it 
was restrained from laying a total prohibition, might be able to give 
some testimony of the sense of America, with respect to the African 
trade. ****** It is to be hoped, that by expressing a 
national disapprobation of this trade, we may destroy it, and save our- 
selves from reproaches, and our posterity the imbecility ever 

ATTENDANT ON A COUNTRY FILLED WITH SLATES. I do nOt wish tO 

say any thing harsh to the hearing of gentlemen who entertain differ- 
(3nt sentiments from me, or difterent sentiments from those I represent. 
But if there is any one point in which it is clearly the policy of this 
nation, so far as we constitutionally can, to vary the practice obtain- 
ing under some of the state governments, it is this. But it is certain 
a majority of the states are opposed to this practice.'^ — [Cong. Reg. 
V. 1, p. 308-12. 

A writer in the " Gazette of the United States," Feb. 20th, 1790, 
(then the government paper,) who opposes the abolition of slavery, 
and avows himself a slaveholder, says, " I have seen in the papers ac- 
counts of large associations, and applications to Government for the 
abolition of slavery. Religion, humanity, and the generosity natural 
to a free people, are the noble principles ishich dictate those measures. 
Such motives command respect, and are above any eulogium 
words can bestow." 

It is well known, that in the convention that formed the constitu- 
tlon of Kentucky in 1780, the effort to prohibit slavery was nearly 
successful. The writer has frequently heard it asserted in Kentucky, 
and has had it from some who were members of that convention, that 
a decided majority of that body would have voted for its exclusion, 
but for the great efforts and influence of two large slaveholders — men 
of commanding talents and sway — Messrs. Breckenridge and Nicho« 
las. The following extract from a speech made in that convention 
by a member of it, Mr. Rice, a native Virginian, is a specimen of 
the free discussion that prevailed on that " delicate subject." Said 
Mr. Rice : " I do a man greater injury, when 1 deprive him of his 
liberty, than when I deprive him of his property. It is vain for me 
to plead that I have the sanction of law ; for this makes the injury 
the greater — it arms the community ngainst him, and makes his case 



35 

desperate. The owners of such slaves then are licensed rolhers, and 
not the just propi'ietors of what they claim. Freeing them is not 
depriving them of propert}^ but restoring it to the right owner. In 
America, a slave is a standing monument of the tyranny and incon- 
sistency of human governments. The master is the enemy of the 
slave ; he has made open war upon Mm, and is daily carrying it 
ON in unremitted efforts. Can any one imagine, then, that the slave 
is indebted to his master, and hound to serve him ? Whence can the 
obligation arise ? What is it founded upon ? What is my duty to an 
enemy that is carrying on war against me ? I do not deny, but in 
some circumstances, it is the duty of the slave to serve ; but it is a 
duty he owes himself, and not his master." 

President Edwards, the younger, said, in a sermon preached before 
the Connecticut Abolition Society, Sept. 15, 1791 : " Thirty years 
ago, scarcely a man in this country thought either the slave trade or 
the slavery of negroes to be wrong ; but now how many and able 
advocates in private life, in our legislatures, in Congress, have 
appeared, and have openly and irrefragably pleaded the rights of 
humanity in this as well as other instances 1 And if we judge of the 
future by tiie past, within fifty years from this time, it will be as 
shameful for a man to hold a negro slave, as to be guilty of common 
robbery or theft." 

In 1794, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church adopted 
its " Scripture proofs," notes, comments, &c. Among these was the 
following : 

" 1 Tim. i. 10. The law is made for manstealers. This crime 
among the Jews exposed the perpetrators of it to capital punishment. 
Exodus xxi. 16. And the apostle here classes them with sinners of 
the first rank. The word he uses, in its original import comprehends 
all who are concerned in bringing any of the human race into slavery, 
or in retaining them in it. Stealers of men are all those who bring 
off slaves or freemen, and keep, sell, or buy them." 

In 1794, Dr. Rush declared : " Domestic slavery is repugnant to 
the principles of Christianity. It prostrates every benevolent and just 
principle of action in the human heart. It is rebellion against the 
authority of a common Father. It is a practical denial of the extent 
and efficacy of the death of a common Savior. It is an usurpation of 
the prerogative of the great Sovereign of the universe, who has 
solemnly claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men." 

In 1795, Mr. Fiske, then an officer of Dartmouth College, after- 
ward a Judge in Tennessee, said, in an oration published that year, 
speaking of slaves : " I steadfastly maintain, that we must bring them 
to an equal standing, in point of privileges, with the wlites ! They 
must enjoy all the rights belonging to human nature." 

When the petition on the abolition of the slave trade was under dis- 
cussion in the Congress of '89, Mr. Brown, of North Carolina, said, 
*' The emancipation of the slaves will be effected in time ; it ought to 
be a gradual business, but he hoped that Congress would not precipi. 

5 



36 

tate it to the great injury of tlie southern States." Mr. Hartley, of 
Pennsylvania, said, in the same debate, " He was not a little surprised 
to hear the cause of slavery advocated in that hotise.^^ Washington, 
in a letter to Sir John Sinclair, says, " There are, in Pennsylvania, 
laws for the gradual abolition of slavery which neither Maryland nor 
Virginia have at present, but which nothing is more certain tlian that 
they 7nust have, and at a period kot remote." In 1782, Virginia 
passed her celebrated manumission act. Within nine years from that 
time nearly eleven thousand slaves were voluntarily emancipated by 
their masters. Judge Tucker's " Dissertation on Slavery," p. 72. In 
1787, Maryland passed an act legalizing manumission. Mr. Dorsey, 
of Maryland, in a speech in Congress, December 27th, 1826, speak- 
ing of manumissions under that act, said, that " The progress of eman- 
cipation was astonishing, the State became crowded with a free black 
population." 

The celebrated William Pinkney, in a speech before the Mary- 
land House of Delegates, in 1789, on the emancipation of slaves, said, 
" Sir, by the eternal principles of natural justice, no master in the 
state has a right to hold his slave in bondage for a single hour. 
I would as soon believe the incoherent tale of a schoolboy, who should 
tell me he had been frightened by a ghost, as that the grant of this 
permission (to emancipate) ought in any degree to alarm us. Are 
we apprehensive that these men will become more dangerous by be- 
coming freemen ? Are we alarmed, lest by being admitted into the 
enjoyment of civil rights, they will be inspired with a deadly enmity 
against the rights of others ? Strange, unaccountable paradox ! How 
much more rational would it be, to argue that the natural enemy of 
the privileges of a freeman, is he who is robbed(^f them himself ! Dis- 
honorable to the species is the idea that they would ever prove injuri- 
ous to our interests — released from the shackles of slavery, by the 
justice of government and the bounty of individuals — the want of fide- 
lity and attachment would be next to impossible." 

Hon. James Campbell, in an address before the Pennsylvania So- 
ciety of the Cincinnati, July 4, 1787, said, "Our separation from 
Great Britain iias extended the empire oUiumanity. The time is not 
far distant when our sister states, in imitation of our example, shall 
turn their vassals into freemen.'^ The Convention that formed the 
United States' constitution being then in session, attended at the de- 
livery of this oration with General Washington at their head. 

A Baltimore paper of September 8th, 1780, contain-o the follow- 
ing notice of Major General Gates : "A few days ago passed through 
this town the Hon. General Gates and lady. The General, previous 
to leaving Virginia, summoned his numerous family of slaves about 
him, and amidst their tears of affection and gratitude, gave them their 

FREEDOM." 

In 1791 the university of William and Mary, in Virginia, conferred 
upon Granville Sharpe the degree of Doctor of Laws. Sharpe was 
at that time the acknov/ledged head of British abolitionists. His in- 



37 

defatigable exertions, prosecuted for years in the case of Somerset, pro- 
cured that memorable decision in the Court of King's Bench, which 
settled the principle that no slave could be held in England. He was 
most uncompi'omising in his opposition to slavery, and for twenty 
years previous he had spoken, written, and accomplished more against 
it than any man living. 

In the " Memoirs of the Revolutionary War in the Southern De- 
partment," by Gen. Lee, of Va., Commandant of the Partizan Legion, 
is the following : " The Constitution of the United States, adopted 
lately with so much ditficulty, has effectually provided against this 
evil, (by importation) after a k\v years. It is much to be lamented 
that having done so mncli in this way, a provision had not been made 
for the gradual abolition of slavery.'^ — p. 233, 4. 

Mr. Tucker, o( Virginia, Judge of the Supreme Court of that state, 
and professor of law in the University of William and Mary, address- 
ed a letter to the General Assembly of that state, in 1796, urging 
the abolition of slavery ; from which the following is an extract. 
Speaking of the slaves in Virginia, he says : " Should we not, at the 
time of the revolution, have loosed their chains and broken their fet- 
ters ; or if the difficulties and dangers of such an experiment prohib- 
ited the attempt, during the convulsions of a revolution, is it not 
our duty, to embrace the first moment of constitutional heakh and 
vigor to effectuate so desirable an object, and to remove from us a 
stigma with which our enemies will never fail to upbraid us, nor 
consciences to reproach us ?" 

Mr. Faulkner, in a speech before the Virginia Legislature, Jan. 
20, 1832, said — " The idea of a gradual emancipation and removal of 
the slaves from this commonwealth, is coeval with the declaration of 
our independence from the British yoke. It sprung into existence du- 
ring the first session of the General Assembly, subsequent to the for^ 
mationofyour republican government. When Virginia stood sus- 
tained in her legislation by the pure and philosophic intellect of Pen- 
dleton — by the patriotism of Mason and Lee — by the search.ing vigor 
and sagacity of Wythe, and by the all-embracing, all-comprehensive 
genius of Thomas Jefferson ! Sir, it was a committee composed of 
those five illustrious men, who, in 1777, submitted to the general as- 
sembly of this state, then in session, a plan for the gradual emancipa' 
tion of the slaves of ihis commonwealth J''' 

Hon. Benjamin Watkins Leigh, late United States' senator from 
Virginia, in his letters to the people of Virginia, in 183"2, signed Ap- 
pomattox. p. 43, says : " I thought, till very lately, that it was known 
to everybody that during the Revolution, and for many years after, 
the abolition of slavery was a favorite topic loith many of our ablest 
statesmen, who entertained, with respect, all the schemes which wis- 
dom or ingenuity could suggest for accomplishing the object. 
Mr. Wythe, to the day of his dea.th,wasfor a simple abolition, consid. 
ering the objection to color as founded in prejudice. By degrees, all 



38 

projects of the kind were abandoned. Mr. Jefferson retained his 
opinion, and now we have these projects revived." 

Governor Barbour, of Virginia, in his speech in the U. S. Senate, 
on the Missouri question, Jan. 1820, said : — "We are asked why has 
Virginia changed her policy in reference to slavery ? That the senti- 
menls of our most distinguished men, for thirty years entirely cor- 
resjwnded with the course which the friends of the restriction (of sla- 
very in Missouri) now advocated ; and that the Virginia delegation, 
one of whom was the late President of the United States, voted for 
the restriction, (of slavery) in the northwestern territory, and that 
Mr. Jefferson has delineated a gloomy picture of the baneful effects 
of slavery. When it is recollected that the Notes of Mr. Jefferson 
were written during tlie progress of the revolution, it is no matter of 
surprise that the writer should have imbibed a large portion of that , 
enthusiasm which such an occasion was so well calculated to produce. 
As to the consent of the Virginia delegation to the restriction in 
question, whether the result of a disposition to restrain the slave trade 
indirectly, or the influence of that enthusiasm to which I have just al- 
luded, * * * * it is not now important to decide. We have 
witnessed its effects. The liberality of Virginia, or, as the result may 
prove, her foll}'^, which submitted to, or, if you will, proposed this 
measure, (abolition of slavery in the N. W. territory) has eventuated 
in effects which speak a monitory lesson. How is the representation 
from this quarter on the present question .^" 

Mr. Imlay, in his early history of Kentucky, p. 185, saj's : " Wp 
have disgraced the fair face of humanity, and trampled upon the sa- 
cred privileges of man, at the very moment that we were exclaiming 
against the tyranny of your (the English) ministry. But in contend- 
ing for the birthright of freedom, we have learned to f.^el /b?* tlie bon- 
dage of others, and in the libations we offer to the goddess of liberty, 
we contemplate an emancipation of tlie slaves of this country, as hon- 
orable to themselves as it will be glorious to us." 

In the debate in Congress, Jan. 20, 1806, on Mr. Sloan's motion to 
lay a tax on the importation of slaves, Mr. Clark of Va. said : " He 
was no advocate for a system of slavery." Mr. Marion, of S. Caroli- 
na, said : " He never had purchased, nor should he ever purchase a 
slave." Mr. Southard said : " Not revenue, but an expression of 
the national sentiment is the principal, object." Mr. Smilie — " I re- 
joice that the word (slave) is not in the constitution ; its not being 
there does honor to the worthies who would not suffer it to become a 
part of it." Mr. Alston, of N. Corolina — " In two years we shall 
have the power to prohibit the trade altogether. Then this House 
will be UNANIMOUS. No one will object to our exercising our full con- 
stitutional powers." National Intelligencer, Jany. 24, 1806. 

These witnesses need no vouchers to entitle them to credit — nor their 
testimony comments to make it intelligible — ihc'iv names are their endor. 
sers and their strong words their own interpreters. We wave all com- 



39 

ments. Our readers are of age. Whosoever hath ears to hear, let 
him HEAR. And whosoever will not hear the fathers of the revolu- 
tion, the founders of the government, its chief magistrates, judges, le- 
gislators and sages, who dared and periled all under the burdens, and 
in the heat of the day that tried men's souls— then " neither will he 
be persuaded though they rose from the dead." 

Some of the points established by the testimony are — The univer- 
sal expectation that the moral influence of Congress, of state legisla- 
tures, of seminaries of learning, of churches, of the ministers of reli- 
gion, and of public sentiment widely embodied in abolition societies, 
woald be exerted against slavery, calling forth by argument and ap- 
peal the moral sense of the nation, and creating a power of opinion 
that would abolish the system throughout the union. In a word, that 
free speech and a free press would be wielded against slavery without 
ceasing and without restriction. Full well did the south know, not 
only that the national government would probably legislate against 
slavery wherever the constitution placed it within its reach, but she 
knew also that Congress had already marked out the line of national 
policy to be pursued on the subject — had committed itself before the 
Avorld to a course of action against slavery, wherever she could move 
upon it without encountering a conflicting jurisdiction — that the na- 
tion had established by solemn ordinance a memorable precedent for 
subsequent action, by abolishing slavery in the northwest territory, 
and by declaring that it should never thenceforward exist there ; and this 
too, as soon as b)^ cession of V irginia and other states, the territory came 
under Congressional control. The south knew also that the sixth article 
in the ordinance prohibiting slavery was first proposed by the largest 
slaveholding state m the confederacy — that the chairman of the com- 
mittee that reported the ordinance was a slaveholder — that the ordi- 
nance was enacted by Congress during the session of the convention 
that formed the United States Constitution — that the provisions of the 
ordinance were, both while in prospect, and when under discussion, 
matters of universal notoriety and apj^roval with all parties, and when 
finally passed, received the vote of evert/ ?ne7nber of Congress from each 
of the slaveholding states. The south also had every reason for believ- 
ing that the first Congress under the constitution would ratify that or- 
dinance — as it did unanimously. 

A crowd of reflections, suggested by the preceding testimony, 
press for utterance. The right of petition ravished and trampled b}'- 
its constitutional guardians, and insult and defiance hurled in the faces of 
the SOVEREIGN PEOFLE while calmly remowitVciUng toith their servants 
for violence committed on the nation's charter and their own dearest 
rights! Added to this "the right of peaceably assembling" violentlv 
wrested — the rights of minorities, rights no longer — free speech struck 
dumb — I'ree men outlawed and murdered — free presses cast into the 
streets and their fragments strewed with shoutings, or flourished in 
triumph before the gaze of approving crowds as proud mementos of 
prostrate law ! 



40 

The spirit and power of our fathers, where are they ? Their deep 
homage always and every where rendered to free thought, with its 
inseparable signs — -free speech and a free press — their reverence for 
justice, hberty, rights and all-pervading law, where are they ? 

But we turn from these considerations — though the times on which 
we have fallen, and those towards which we are borne with headlong 
haste, call for their discussion as with t!ie voices of departing Ufe — and 
proceed to topics relevant to the argument before us. 

The seventh article of the amendments to the constitution is 
alleged to withhold from Congress the power to abolish slavery in the 
District. " No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, 
without due process of law." All the slaves in the District have been 
" deprived of liberty" by legislative acts. Now, these legislative acts 
" depriving" them " of liberty," were either " due process of law," 
or tliey were not. If they wei^e, then a legislative act, taking from 
the master that " property" which is the identical " liberty" previously 
taken from the slave, would be " due process of law" also, and of 
course a constitutional act ; but if the legislative acts " depriving" 
them of " liberty" were not " due process of law," then the slaves 
were deprived of liberty unconstitutionally , and these acts ai'e void. 
In that case the constitution emancipates them. 

If the objector reply, by saying that the import of tlie phrase 
" due process of law," is judicial process solely, it is granted, and 
that fact is our rejoinder ; for no slave in the District has been de- 
prived of his liberty by " a judicial process," or, in other words, by 
'• due process of law;" consequently, upon the objector's own admission, 
every slave in the District has been deprived of liberty unconstitU' 
tionally, and is therefore free by the constitution. This is asserted 
only of the slaves under the " exclusive legislation" of Congress. 

The last clause of the article under consideration is quoted for the 
same purpose : " Nor shall private property be taken for public use 
without just compensation." Each of the state constitutions has a 
clause of similar purport. The abolition of slavery in the District by 
Congress, would not, as we shall presently show, violate this clause 
either directly or by implication. Granting for argument's sake, that 
slaves are " private property," and that to emancipate them, would 
be to " take private property" for " public use," the objector admits 
the power of Congress to do tliis, provided it will do something else, 
that is, pay for them. Thus, instead of denying Xhe power, the objector 
not only admits, but affirms it, as the ground of the inference that 
compensation must accompany it. So far from disproving the exist- 
ence of one power, the objector asserts the existence of two — one, the 
power to take the slaves from their masters, the other, the power to 
take the property of the United States to pay for them. 

If Congress cannot constitutionally impair the right of private 
property, or take it without compensation, it cannot constitutionally, 
legalize the perfietration of such acts, by others, nor protect those who 
commit them. Does the power to rob a man of his earnings, rob the 



41 

earner of his right to them? Who has a better right to the product 
than the producer ? — to the interest, than the owner of ihe principal ? 
' — to the hands and arms, than he from whose shoulders they swing ? 
— to the body and soul, than he whose they arc ? Congress not only 
impairs but annihilates the right of private property, while it withholds 
from the slaves of the District their title to themselves. What ! Con- 
gress powerless to protect a man's right to himself, when it can make 
inviolable the right to a dog ! But, waving this, I deny that the abo- 
lition of slavery in the District would violate this clause. What does 
the clause prohibit 1 The " taking" of " private property" for *' public 
use." Suppose Congress should emancipate the slaves in the District, 
what would it " take ?" Nothing. What would it hold 1 Nothing. 
What would it put to " public use?" Nothing. Instead of taking 
" private property," Congress, by abolishing slavery, would say 
'^^ private property shall not he taken ; and those wlio have been 
robbed of it already, shall be kept out of it no longer ; and since 
every man'> light to his own body is j^aramoiint, he shall be protected 
in it." True, Congress may not arbitrarily take property, as pro- 
perty, from one man and give it to another — and in the abolition of 
slavery no such thing is done. A legislative act changes the condi- 
Hon of the slave — makes him his own proprietor instead of tlie pro. 
perty of another. It determines a question of original right between 
two classes of persons — doing an act of justice to one, and restraining 
the other from acts of injustice ; or, in other words, preventing one 
from robbing the other, by granting to the injured party the protection 
of just and equitable laws. 

Congress, by an act of abolition, would change the condition of 
seven thousand " persons" in the District, but would " take" nothing. 
To construe this provision so as to enable the citizens of the District 
to hold as property, and in perpetuity, whatever they please, or to 
hold it as property in all circumstances — all necessity, public welfare, 
and the will and power of the government to the contrary notwith- 
standing — is a total perversion of its whole intent. The design of 
the provision, was to throw up a barrier against Governmental a"'.' 
grandizement. The right to " take property" f )r State uses is one 
thing; — the right so to adjust the tenures by which property is held, 
that each may have his oion secured to him, is another thinp-, and 
clearly within the scope of legislation. Besides, if Congress wei'e to 
" take" the slaves in the District, it would be adopting, not abolishing 
slavery — becoming a slaveholder itself, instead of requiring others to 
be such no longer. The clause in question, prohibits the " taking" 
of individual property for public uses, to be employed or disposed of 
as property for governmental purposes. Congress, by abolishing 
slavery in the District, would do no such thing. It would merely 
change the condition of that which has been recognised as a qualified 
property by congressional acts, though previously declared "persons" 
by the constitution. More than this is done continually by Congress 
and every other Legislature. Property the most absolute and unquali- 



43 

fied, is annihilated by legislative acts. The embargo and non-inter- 
course act, prostrated at a stroke, a forest of shipping, and sunk mil- 
lions of capital. To say nothing of the power of Congress to take 
hundreds of millions from the people by direct taxation, who doubts 
its power to abolish at once the whole tariff" system, change the seat 
of Government, arrest the progress of national works, prohibit any 
branch of commerce with the Indian tribes or with foreign nations, 
change the locality efforts, arsenals, magazines, dock yards, &c., to 
abolish the Post Office system, the privilege of patents and copyrights, 
«Stc. By such acts Congress might, in the exercise of its acknow- 
ledged powers, annihilate property to an incalculable amount, and 
that without becoming liable to claims for compensation. 

Finally, this clause prohibits the taking for public use of "^jro- 
perty." The constitution of the United States does not recognise 
slaves as " property" any where, and it does not recognise them in 
any sense in the District of Columbia. All allusions to them in the 
constitution recognise them as " persons." Every refei-ence to them 
points solely to the element of personality ; and thus, by the strongest 
implication, declares that the constitution knows them only as " per- 
sons," and loill not recognise them in any other light. If tliey escape into 
free States, the constitution authorizes their being taken back. But 
how? Not as the property of an " owner," but as " persons ;" and 
the peculiarity of the expression is a marked recognition of their ^er- 
sonality — a refusal to recognise them as chattels — " persons held to 
service." Are oxen " held to service ?" That can be affirmed only 
oi perso7is. Again, slaves give political power as " persons." The 
constitution, in settling the principle of representation, requires their 
enumeration in the census. How? As property? Then why not 
include race horses and game cocks ? Slaves, like other inhabitants, 
ai-e enumerated as " persons." So by the constitution, the government 
was pledged to non-interference with " the migration or importation 
of such ^ersows" as the States might think proper to admit until 1808, 
and authorized the laying of a tax on each " person" so admitted. 
Furtiier, slaves are recognised as persons by the exaction of their a//e- 
giance to the government. For offences against the government 
slaves are tried nn persons ; as persons they are entitled to counsel for 
their defence, to the rules of evidence, and to "due process of law," 
and as persons they are punished. True, they are loaded with cruel 
disabilities in courts of law, such as greatly obstruct and often inevi- 
tably defeat the ends of justice, yet they are still recognised as 2)er. 
sons. Even in the legislation of Congress, and in the diplomacy of 
the general government, notwithstanding the frequent and wide depar- 
tures from the integrity of the constitution on this subject, slaves are 
not recognised as property without qualification. Congress has al- 
ways refused to grant compensation for slaves killed or taken by the 
enemy, even when these slaves had been impressed into the United 
States' service. In lialf a score of cases since the last war, Congress 
has rejected such applications for compensation. Besides, both in 



Congressional acts, and in our national diplomacy, slaves and property 
are not used as convertible terms. Wlien mentioned in treaties and 
state papers it is in such a way as to distinguish them from mere pro- 
perty, and generally by a recognition oi their personaliti/. In the in- 
variable recognition of slaves as persons, the LFnited States' constitu- 
tion caught the mantle of the glorious Declaration, and most worthily 
wears it. — It recognizes all human beings as " men," " persons," and 
thus as " equals." In the original draft of the Declaration, as it 
came from the hand of Jefferson, it is alleged that Great Britain had 
" waged a cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sa- 
cred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people, carry- 
ing them into slavery, * * determined to keep up a market where 
MEN should be bought and sold," — thus disdaining to make the charter 
of freedom a warrant for the arrest oilmen, that they might be shorn 
both of liberty and humanity. 

The celebrated Roger Sherman, one of the committee of five ap- 
pointed draft the Declaration of Independence, and also a member of the 
convention that formed the United States' constitution, said, in the first 
Congress after its adoption : *' The constitution does not consider these 
persons, (slaves,) as a species of property."- — [Lloyd's Cong. Reg. 
V. 1, p. 31.3.] That the United States' Constitution does not make 
slaves " property," is shown in the fact, that no person, either as a citi- 
zen of the United States, or by having his domicile witliin the United 
States' government, can hold slaves. He can hold them only by deri- 
ving his power from state laws, or from the laws of Congress, if he 
hold slaves within the District. But no person resident within the 
United States' jurisdiction, and not within the District, nor within a 
state whose laws support slavery, nor " held to service " under the 
laws of such state or district, having escaped therefrom, caii be held as 
a slave. 

Men can hold property under the United States' government though 
residing beyond the bounds of any state, district, or territory. An m- 
habitant of the Wisconsin Territory can hold property there under the 
laws of the United States, but he cannot hold slaves there under the 
United States' laws, nor by virtue of the United States' Constitution, 
nor upon the ground of his United States citizenship, nor by having 
his domicile within the United States jurisdiction. The constitution 
no where recognizes the right to " slave property," but merely the fact 
that the states have jurisdiction each in its oivn limits, and that there 
are certain '■'persons" within their jurisdictions '■^ held to service ^^ by 
their own latos. 

Finally, in the clause under consideration, " private property " 
is not to be taken " without just compensation." " Just I" If 
justice is to be appealed to in determining the amount of compensa- 
tion, let her determine the grounds also. If it be her province to say 
how much cumperisation is "just," it is hi'rs to sr.y whctlur ony is 
"just," — whether the slave is "just " property at a//, rather than a 
*^ person." Then, if justice adjudges the slave to be "private prop- 

6 



44 

eity," it adjudges him to be his own property, since the riglit to one's- 
self is the first right — the source of all others — the original stock by 
which they are accumulated — the principal, of which ihey are the in- 
terest. And since the slave's "private property " has been " taken," 
and since " compensation" is impossible — there being no equivalent for 
one's self — the least that can be done is to restore to him his original 
private property. 

Having shown that in abolishing slavery, "property " would not 
be " taken for public use," it may be added that, in those states where 
slavery has been abolished by law, no claim ibr compensation has 
been allowed. Indeed the manifest absurdity of demanding it, seems 
to have quite forestalled the selling up of such a claim. 

The abolition of slavery in the District, instead of being a legisla- 
tive anomaly, would proceed upon the principles of every day legisla- 
tion. It has been shown already, that the United States' Constitution 
does not recognize slaves as " property." Yet ordinary legislation is 
full of precedents, showing that even absolute property is in many re- 
spects wholly subject to legislation. The repeal of the law of entail- 
ments — all those acts that control the alienation of property, its dispo- 
sal by will, its passing to heirs by descent, with the question, who shall 
be heirs, and what shall be the rule of distribution among them, or 
whether property shall be transmitted at all by descent, rather than 
escheat to the state — these, with statutes of limitation, and various oth- 
er classes of legislative acts, serve to illustrate the acknowledged 
scope of the law-making power, even where property is in every sense 
absolute. Persons whose property is thus affected by public laws, 
receive from the government no compensation for their losses, unless 
the state has been put into possession of the property taken from 
them. 

The preamble of the United States' Constitution declares it to be 
a fundamental object of the organization of the government " to es- 
tablish JUSTICE." Has Congress no power to do that for which 
it was made the depository of power ? Cannot the United States 
Government fulfil the purpose /or which it teas brought info being ? 

To abolish slavery, is to take from no rightful owner his property ; 
hut io '' establish justiceJ^ between two parties. To emancipate the 
slave, is to " eslalilish justice'" between him and his master — to throw 
around the person, character, conscience, liberty, and domestic 
relations of the one, the same law that secures and blesses the other. 
In other words, to prevent by legal restraints one class of men from seiz- 
ing upon another class, and robbing them at pleasure of their earnings, 
their time, their liberty, their kindred, and the very use and owner- 
ship of their own persons. Finally, to abolish slavery is to proclaim 
and enact tliat innocence and helplessness — now free plunder — are 
entitled to legal protection ; and that power, avarice, and lust, shall no 
longer gorge upon their spoils underthe license, and by the ministra- 
tions of Zrtw/ Congress, by possessing "exclusive legislation in all 
cases whatsoever," has a general protective power for all the inhabi- 



45 

tants of the District. If it has no power to protect one man, it has none 
to protect another — none to protect any — and if it can protect one man 
and is bound to protect him, it can protect every man — all men — and is 
bound to do it. All admit the power of Congress to protect the masters 
in the District against their slaves. What part of the constitution 
gives the power '? The clause so often quoted, — " power of legislation 
in all cases whatsoever," equally in the " case^' of defending the 
blacks against the whites, as in that of defending the whites against 
the blacks. The pov/er is given also by Art. 1, Sec. 8, clause 15 — 
" Congress shall have power to suppress insurrections" — a power to 
protect, as well blacks against whites, as whites against blacks. If 
the constitution gives power to protect 07ie class against the other, 
it gives power to protect either against the other. Suppose the blacks 
in the District should seize the whites, drive them into the fields and 
kitchens, force them to work without pay, flog them, imprison them, 
and sell them at their pleasure, where would Congress find power to 
restrain such acts ? Answer ; a general power in the clause so often 
cited, and an express one in that cited above — " Congress shall have 
power, to suppress insurrections." So much for a supposed case. 
Here follows a real one. The whites in the District are perpetrating 
these identical acts upon seven thousand blacks daily. That Congress 
has power to restrain these acts in one case, all assert, and in so doing 
they assert the power " in all cases whatsoever." For the grant 
of power to suppress insurrections, is an unconditional grant, 
not hampered by provisos as to the color, shape, size, sex, lan- 
guage, creed, or condition of the insurgents. Congress derives its 
power to suppress this actual insurrection, from the same source 
whence it derived its powoi- to suppress the sa7ne acts in the case sup- 
posed. If one case is an insurrection, the other is. The acts in both 
are the same ; the actors only are different. In the one case, igno- 
rant and degraded — goaded by the memory of the past, stung by the 
present, and driven to desperation by the fearful looking for of wrongs 
for ever to come. In the other, enlightened into the nature of rights, 
the principles of justice, and the dictates of the law of love, unprovok- 
ed by wrongs, with cool deliberation, and by system, they perpetrate 
these acts upon those to whom they owe unnumbered obligations for 
whole lives o^ unrequited service. On which side may palliation be 
pleaded, and which party may most reasonably claim an abatement of 
the rigors of law ? If Congress has power to suppress such acts at all, 
it has power to suppress them in all. 

It has been shown already that allegiance is exacted of the slave. 
Is the government of the United States unable to grant protection 
where it exacts allegiance 1 It is an axiom of the civilized world, 
and a maxim even with savages, that allegiance and protection are 
reciprocal and correlative. Are principles powerless with us which 
exact homage of barbarians ? Protection is the coastitutionaj. right 
of every human being under the exclusive legislation of Congress u'ho 
lias not forfeited it by crime. 



46 

In conclusion, I argue the power of Congress to abolish slavery 
in the District, from Art. 1, sec. 8, clause 1, of the constitution : 
" Congress sliall have power to provide for the common defence and 
the i^t'ncral welfare of the United States." Has Mio government of 
the United States no power under this grant, to legislate within its 
own exclusive jurisdiction on subjects that vitally affect its interests? 
Suppose the slaves in the District should rise upon their masters, and 
the United States' government, in quelling the insurrection, should 
kill any number of them. Could their masters claim compensation of 
the government ? Manifestly not ; even though no proof existed that 
the particular slaves killed were insurgents. This was precisely the 
point at issue between those masters, whose slaves were killed by the 
State troops at the time of the Southampton insurrection, and the Vir- 
ginia Legislature ; no evidence was brought to show that the slaves 
killed by the troops were insurgents ; yet the Virginia Legislature 
decided that their masters were not enlithd to comfensation. They 
proceeded on the sound principle, that a government may in self- 
protection destroy the claim of its subjects even to that which has 
been recognised as property by its own acts. If in providing for the 
common defence, the United States' government, in the case supposed, 
would have power to destroy slaves both as property and persons, it 
surely might stop half-vay, destroy them as property while it legalized 
their existence as persons, and thus provided for the common defence 
by giving them a personal and powerful interest in the government, 
and secuiing their strength for its defence. 

Like other Legislatures, Congress has power to abate nuisances — 
to remove or tear down unsafe buildings — to destroy infected cargoes 
— to lay injunctions upon manufactories injurious to the public health 
— and thus to " provide for the common defence and general welfare" 
by destroying individual property, when it puts in jeopardy the public 
weal. 

Granting, for argument's sake, that slaves are " property" in the 
District of Columbia — if Congress has a right to annihilate property 
in the District when the public safety requires it, it may surely anni- 
hilate its existence as property when the public safety requires it, 
especially if it transform into a protection and defence that which aa 
property periled the public interests. In the District of Columbia 
there are, besides the United States' Capitol, the President's house, the 
national oiBces, &c. of the Departments of State, Treasury, War, and 
Navy, the General Post-office, and Patent Office. It is also the resi- 
dence of the President, all the highest officers of the government, 
botli houses of Congress, and all the foreign ambassadors. In this 
same District there are also seven thousand slaves. Jefferson, in his 
Notes on Va. p. 241, says of slavery, that " the State permitting one 
half of its citizens to trample on the rights of the other, transforms 
them into enemies ;" and Richard Henry Lee, in the Va. House of 
Burgesses in 17.58, declared that to those who held them, *' slaves 
must he, natural enemies." Is Congress so impotent that it cannot 



47 

exercise that right pronounced both by municipal and national law, 
the most sacred and universal — the right of self-preservation and de. 
fence ? Is it shut up to the necessity of keeping seven thousand 
"enemies" in the heart of the nation's citadel? Does the iron fiat of 
the constitution doom it to such imbecility that it cannot arrest the 
process that made them " enemies," and still goads to deadlier hate by 
fiery trials, and day by day adds others to their number ? Is this 
providing for the common defence and general welfare ? If to rob 
men of rights excites their hate, freely to restore them and make 
amends, will win their love. 

By enaancipating the slaves in the District, the government of the 
United States would disband an army of "enemies," and enlist " for 
the common defence and general welfare," a body guard of friends 
seven thousand strong. In the last war, a handful ot British soldiers 
sacked Washington city, burned the capitol, the President's house, 
and the national oflices and archives ; and no marvel, for thousands 
of the inhabitants of the District had been "transformed into ene- 
MIES." Would they beat back invasion? If the national government 
had exercised its constitutional " power to provide for the common 
defence and to promote the general welfare, " by turning those " ene- 
mies" into friends, then, instead of a hostile ambush lurking in every 
thicket inviting assault, and secret foes in every house paralyzing 
defence, an army of allies would have rallied in the hour of her ca- 
lamity, and shouted defiance from their munitions of rocks ; whilst the 
banner of the republic, then trampled in dust, would have floated se- 
curely over FREEMEN exulting amidst bulwarks of strength. 

To show that Congress can abolish slavery in the District, under 
the grant of power " to provide for the common defence and to pro. 
mote the general welfare," I quote an extract from a speech of Mr. 
Madison, of Va., in the first Congress under the constitution, May 13, 
1789. Speaking of the abolition of the slave trade, Mr. Madison 
says : " I should venture to say it is as much for the interests of 
Georgia and South Carolina, as of any state in the union. Every 
addhion they receive to their number of slaves tends to weaken them, 
and renders them less capable of selfdefence. In case of hostilities 
v/ith foreign nations, they will be the means of inviting attack instead 
of repelling invasion. It is a necessary duty of the general govern- 
ment to protect every part of the empire against danger, as well in- 
ternal as external. Every thing, therefore, which tends to increase 
this danger, though it may he a local affair, yet if it involves nation- 
al expense or safety, it becomes of concern to every part of the union, 
and is a proper stibject for the consideration of those charged with 
the general administration of the government. See Cong. Reg. vol. 
l,p. 310-11. 

WYTHE. 



POSTSCRIPT. 



Mt apology for adding a. postscript, to a discussion already perhaps too 
protracted, is the fact that the preceding sheets were in the hands ofthe prin- 
ter, and ail but the concluding pages had gone tiirough the press, before the 
passage of Mr. Calhoun's late resolutions in the Senate of the United States. 
A proceeding so extraordinary, — if indeed the time has not passed wlien any 
acts of Congress in derogation of freedom and in deference to slavery, can 
be deemed extraordinary, — should not be suffered to pass in silence at such 
a crisis as the present ; especially as the passage of one of the resolutions 
by a vote of 36 to 8, exhibits a shift of position on the part of the South, 
as sudden as it is unaccountable, being nothing less than the surrender of 
a fortress which until then they had defended with tlie pertinacity of a 
blind and almost infuriated fatuity. Upon the discussions during the pend- 
ency of the resolutions, and upon the vote, by which they were carried, I 
make no comment, save only to record my exultation in the fact there 
exhibited, that great emergencies are true touchstones, and that hencefor- 
ward, until this question is settled, whoever liolds a seat in Congress will 
find upon, and all around him, a pressure strong enough to test him — a 
focal blaze that will find its way through the carefully adjusted cloak of fair 
pretension, and the sevenfold brass of two-faced political intrigue, and no- 
faced non-committalism, piercing to the dividing asunder of joints and mar- 
row. Be it known to every northern man who aspires to a seat in Congress, 
that hereafter it is the destiny of congressional action on this subject, to be a 
MIGHTY REVELATOR — making secret thoughts public properly, and pro- 
claiming on the house-tops what is whispered in the ear — smiting off masks, 
and bursting open sepulchres beautiful outwardly, and heaving up to the sun 
their dead men's bones. To such we say, — Remember the Missouri Ques- 
tion, and the fate of those who then sold the North, and their oum birthright ! 

Passing by the resolutions generally without remark — ^the attention 
of the reader is specially solicited to Mr. Clay's substitute for Mr. Cal- 
houn's fifth resolution. 

" Resolved, That when the District of Columbia was ceded by the states 
of Virginia and Maryland to the United States, domestic slavery existed in 
both of these states, including the ceded territory, and that, as it still con- 
tinues in both of tliem, it could not be abolished within the District without 
a violation of that good faith, which was implied in the cession and in the 
acceptance ofthe territory ; nor, unless compensation were made to the pro- 
prietors of slaves, without a manifest infringement of an amendment to the 
constitution of the United States ; nor witiiont exciting a degree of just 
alarm and apprehension in the states recognising slavery, far transcending 
in mischievous tendency, any possible benefit which could be accomplished 
by the abolition." 

By voting for this resolution, the south by a simultaneous movement, 
shifted its m.ode of defence, not so much by taking a position entirely new, 
as by attempting to refortify an old one — never much trusted in, and aban- 
doned mainly long ago, as being unable to hold out against assault however 



49 

unskilfully directed. In the debate on this resolution, though the southern 
members of Congress did not professedly retreat from the ground hitherto 
maintained by them — that Congress has no power by the constitution to abo- 
lish slavery in the District — yet in the main they silently drew off from it. 

Thj passage of this resolution — with the vote of every southern senator, 
forms a new era in the discussion of this question. 

We cannot join in the lamentations of those who bewail it. We hail it, 
and rejoice in it. It was as we would have had it — offered by a southern se- 
nator, advocated by southern senators, and on the ground that it " was no 
compromise " — that it embodied the true southern principle — that " this 
resolution stood on as high ground as Mr. Calhoun's." — (Mr. Preston) — 
"that Mr. Clay's resolution was as strong as Mr. Calhoun's" — (Mr. Rives) 
— that "the resolution he (Mr. Calhoun) now refused to support, was 
as strong as his own, and that in supporting it, there was no abandonment 
of principle by the south.'' — (Mr. Walker, of Mi.) — farther, that it was ad- 
vocated by the southern senators generally as an expression of their views, 
and as setting the question of slavery in the District on its true ground — that 
finally when the question was taken, every slaveholding senator, including 
Mr. Calhoun himself, voted for the resolution. 

By passing this resolution, and with such avowals, the south has sur- 
rendered irrevocably the whole question at issue between them and the 
petitioners for abolition in the District. It has, unwittingly but explicitly, 
conceded the main question argued in the preceding pages. 

The only ground taken against the right of Congress to abolish slavery 
in the District is, that slavery existed in Maryland and Virginia when the 
cession was made, and " as it still continues in both of them, it could not be 
abolished without a violation of that good faith which was implied in the 
cession," &,c. The sole argument is not that exclusive sovereignty has no 
power to abolish slavery within its jurisdiction, nor that the powers of even 
ordinary legislation cannot do it, — nor that the clause granting Congress 
♦'exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District," gives no 
power to do it; but that the xtnexpressed expectation o? owe o?i\\e\)?iXiitB 
that the other would not "in all cases" use the power which said party had 
consented might be used " in all cases," prohibits the use of it. Tlie only 
cardinal point in the discussion, is here not only yielded, but formally laid 
down by the South as the leading article in their creed on the question of 
Congressional jurisdiction over slavery in the District. The sole reason 
given why Congress should not abolish, and the sole evidence that if it did, 
such abolition would be a violation of " good faith," is that " slavery still 
continues in those states,'^ — thus explicitly admitting, that if slavery did 7ioi 
" still continue" in those States, Congress could abolish it in the District. 
The same admission is made also in the premises, which state that slavery 
existed in those states at the time of the cession, «fec. Admitting that if it 
had ?iot existed there then, but had grown up in the District under United 
States' laws, Congress might constitutionally abolish it. Or ihatif the ceded 
parts of those states had been the only parts in which slaves were held under 
their laws, Congress might have abolished in such a contingency also. The 
cession in that case leaving no slaves in those states, — no "good faith," 
would be " implied" in it, nor any •' violated," by an act of abolition. The 
principle of the resolution makes this furtht;r admission, that if Maryland 
and Virginia should at once abolish their slavery, Congress mio-ht at once 
abolish ic in the District. The principle goes even further than this, and 
requires Congress in such case to abolish slavery in the District " by the 
good faith implied in the cession and acceptance of the territory," Since, 



50 

according to the spirit and scope of the resolution, this " implied good faith'' 
of Maryland and Virginia in making the ceesion, was that Congress would 
do nothing within the District which should go to counteract the policy, or 
bring into disrepute the " institutions," or call in question the usages, or even 
in any way ruffle the prejudices of those states, or do what they might think 
would unfavorably bear upon their interests ; themselves of course being the 
judges. 

But let U8 dissect another limb of the resolution. What is to be understood 
by "that good faith which was implied]" It is of course an admission that 
such a condition was not expressed in the acts of cession — that in their terms 
there is nothing restricting the power of Congress on the subject of slavery in 
the District — not a tvord alluding to it, nor one inserted wiih such an intent. 
This " implied faith," then, rests on no clause or word in the United States' 
Constitution, or in the acts of cession, or in the acts of Congress accepting 
the cession, nor does it rest on any declarations of the legislatures of Maryland 
and Virginia made at the time, or in that generation, nor on any act of theirs, 
nor on any declaration of the people of those states, nor on the testimony of 
the VVashingstons, JefFersons, Madisons, Chaces, Martins, and Jennifers, of 
those states and times. The assertion rests on itself alone ! Mr. Clay and 
the other senators who voted for tiie resolution, guess that Maryland and 
Virginia supposed that Congress would by no means use the power given 
them by the constitution, except in such ways as would be well pleasing in 
the eyes of those states ; especially as one of them was the "Ancient Do- 
minion !" And now after the lapse of half a century, this assumed eccpecta' 
tion of Maryland and Virginia, the existence of which is mere matter of con- 
jecture with tho 36 senators, is conjured up and duly installed upon the 
judgment-seat of final appeal, before whose nod constitutions are to flee 
away, and with whom, solemn grants of power and explicit guaranties are 
when weighed in the balance, altogether lighter than vanity ! 

But let us survey it in another light. Why did Maryland and Vir- 
ginia leave so much to be "impliedV Why did they not in some way ex- 
press what lay so near their hearts ■? Had their vocabulary run so low 
that a single word could not not be eked out for the occasion 1 Or were 
those states so bashful of a sudden that they dare not speak out and 
tell what they wanted ? Or did they take it for granted that Congress 
would always act in the premises according to their wishes, and that too, 
without their making A:7Jo?^n their wishes f If, as honorable senators tell us, 
Maryland and Virginia did verily travail with such abounding faith, why 
brought they forth no works ? 

It is as true in legislation as in religion, that the only evidence of 
" faith " is works, and that •' faith " ivithout works is dead, i. e. has no 
power. But here, forsooth, a blind implication with nothing expressed, an 
" implied "faith without works, is omnipotent. Mr. Clay is lawyer eno'igh to 
know that even a senatorial hypothesis as to ichat must have been the under^ 
standing o? MSiXy\dL.n([ and Virginia about congressional exercise of constitu- 
tional power, abrogates no grant, and that to plead it in a court of law, would 
be of small service except to jostle " their Honors'" gravity! He need 
not be told that the constitution gives Congress " power to exercise exclu- 
sive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District." Nor that the le- 
gislatures of Maryland and Virginia constructed their acts of cession with 
this cla\ise before their eyes, and that both of them declared those acts made 
'■'■in pursuance'' of said clause. Tho?e states were aware that the United 
States in their constitution had left nothing to be " implied " as to the pow- 
er of Congress over the District ; — an admonition quite sufficient one would 



51 

think to put them on tlieir guard, and induce thorn to eschew vague impli- 
cations and resort to stipulations. Full well did they know also that those 
were times when, in matters of high import, nothing was left to ho " im- 
plied." The colonies were then panting from a twenty years' conflict with 
the mother country, about bills of rights, charters, treaties, constitutions, 
grants, limitations, and acts of cession. The severities of a long and terrible 
discipline had taught them to guard at all ^omislegislatice grants, that their 
exact import and limit might be self-evident — leaving no scope for a blind 
•' faith," that somehow in the lottery of chances there would be no blanks, 
but making all sure by the use of explicit terms, and wisely chosen words, 
^xiAjust enough of them. The Constitution of the United States with its 
amendments, those of the individual statts, the national treaties, the public 
documents of the general and state governments at that period, show the 
universal conviction of legislative bodies, that when great public interests 
were at stake, nothing should be left to be "implied." 

Further : suppose Maryland and Virginia had expressed their " implied 
faith" in ivords, and embodied it in their acts of cession as a proviso, declar- 
ing that Congress should not " exercise exclusive legislation in all cases what- 
soever over the District," but that the " case" o? slavery should be an excep- 
tion : who does not know that Congress, if it had accepted the cession on those 
terms, would have violated the Constitution ; and who that has ever studied 
the free mood of those times in its bearings on slavery — proofs of which are 
given in scores on the preceding pages — can for an instant believe that the 
people of the United States would have altered their Constitution for the 
purpose of providing for slavery an inviolable sanctuary ; that when driven 
in from its outposts, and everywhere retreating discomfited before the 
march of freedom, it might be received into everlasting habitations on the 
common homestead and hearth-stone of this free republic ? Besides, who can 
believe that Virginia made such a condition, or cherished such a purpose, 
when at that very moment, Washington, Jefferson, Wythe, Patrick Henry 
St. George Tucker, and almost all her illustrious men, were advocating the 
abolition of slavery by law. When Washington had said, two years before, 
Maryland and Virginia "must have laws for the gradual abolition of slavery 
and at a period not remote ;" and when Jefferson in his letter to Price, 
three years before the cession, had said, speaking of Virginia, " This is the 
next state to which we may turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle of 
justice in conflict with avarice and oppression — a conflict in which the 
SACRED SIDE IS GAINING DAILY RECRUITS ;" when Voluntary emancipations 
on the soil were then progressing at the rate of between one and two thou- 
sand annually, (See Judge Tucker's " Dissertation on Slavery," p. 73 ;) 
when the public sentiment of Virginia had undergone, and was undergoing so 
mighty a revolution that the idea of the continuance of slavery as a permanent 
system could not be tolerated, though she then contained about half the slaves 
in the Union. Was this the time to stipulate for the perpetuity of slavery under 
the exclusive legislation of Congress ? and that too at the same session of Con- 
gress wlien every one of her delegation voted for the abolition of slavery in 
the North West Territory ; a territory which she had herself ceded to Con- 
gress, and along with it had surrendered her jurisdiction over many of her 
citizens, inhabitants of that territory, who held slaves there — and whose 
slaves were emancipated by that act of Congress, in which all her delegation 
with one accord participated ? 

Now in view of the universal belief then prevalent, that slavery in this 
country was doomed to short life, and especially that in Maryland and Vir- 
ginia it would be speedily abolished — are we to be told that those states de- 



6S 

signed to bind Congress never to terminate it 1 Are we to adopt the n)on- 
strous conclusion that this was the intent of the Ancient Dominion — thus to 
bind the United States by an " implied faith," and that when the United 
States accepted the cession, she did solemnly thus plight her troth, and 
that Vn-ginia did then so understand it ? Verily one would think that hon- 
orable senators supposed themselves deputed to do our ihinkivg as well as 
our legislation, or rather, that they themselves were absolved from such 
drudgery by virtue of their office ! 

Another absurdity of this dogma about " implied faith" is, that where 
there was no power to exact an express pledge, there was none lo demand 
an implied one, and where there was no power to give the one, there was 
none to give the other. We have shown already that Congress could not 
have accepted the cession with such a condition. To have signed away a 
part of its constitutional grant of power would have been a breach of the 
Constitution. Further, the Congress which accepted the cession was com- 
petent to pass a resolution pledging itself not to use all the power over the 
District committed to it by the Constitution. But here its power ended. 
Its resolution would only bind itself. Could it bind the next Congress by 
its authority 1 Could the members of one Congress say to the members of 
another, because we do not choose to exercise all the authority vested in us by 
the Constitution, therefore you shall not 1 This would have been a prohibition 
to do what the Constitution gives power to do. Each successive Congress 
would still have gone to the Constitution for its power, brushing away in its 
course the cobwebs stretched across its path by the officiousnes of an im- 
pertinent predecessor. Again, the legislatures of Virginia and Maryland, 
had no power to bind Congress, either by an express or an implied pledge, 
never to abolish slavery in the District. Those legislatures had no power 
to bind themselves never to abolish slavery within their own territories — the 
ceded parts included. Where then would they get power to bind another 
not to do what they had no power to bind themselves not to dol If a 
legislature could not in this respect control the successive legislatures of 
its own State, could it control the successive Congresses of the United 
States 1 

But perhaps we shall be told, that the " implied faith" in the acts of ces- 
sion of Maryland and Virginia was not that Congress should never abolish 
slavery in the District, but that it should not do it until they had done it 
within their bounds ! Verily this " faith" comes little short of the faith of 
miracles ! " A good rule that works both ways." First, Maryland and Vir- 
ginia have "good faith" that Congress will not abolish until they do ; and 
then just as " good faith" that Congress will abolisli tchen they do ! Excel- 
lently accommodated ! Did those States suppose that Congress would le- 
gislate over the national domain, the common jurisdiction of all, for Mary- 
land and Virginia alone 1 And who, did they suppose, would be judges in 
the matter 1 — themselves merely 1 or the whole Union 1 

This " good faith implied in the cession" is no longer of doubtful interpre- 
tation. The principle at the bottom of it, when fairly stated, is this : — That 
the Government of the United States are bound in "good faith" to do in the 
District of Columbia, without demurring, just what and when, Maryland and 
Virginia dointheir own States. In short, that the general government is eased 
of all the burdens of legislation within its exclusive jurisdiction, save that 
of hiring a scrivener to copy off the acts of the Maryland and Virginia legisla- 
tures as fast as they are passed, and engross them, under the title of" Laws 
of the United States, for the District of Columbia !" A slight additional ex- 
pense would also be incurred in keeping up an express between the capitols 



53 

of those States and Washington city, bringing Congress from time to time 
its " instructions'" from head quarters — instructions not to be disregarded 
without a violation of that ''good faith implied in the cession," &c. 

This sets in strong light the advantages of " our glorious Union," if the 
doctrine of Mr. Clay and the thirty-six Senators be orthodox. The people 
of the United States have been permitted to set up at their own expense, 
and on their own territory, two great sounding boards called " Senate 
Chamber" and " Representatives' Hali," for the purpose of sending abroad 
«* by authority" national echoes of state legislation ! — permitted also to keep in 
their pay a corps of pliant national musicians, with peremptory instructions to 
sound on any line of the staff according as Virginia and Maryland may give 
the sovereign key note ! 

Though this may have the seeming of mere raillery, yet an analysis of 
the resolution and of the discussions upon it, will convince every fair mind 
that it is but the legitimate carrying out of the principle pervading both. 
They proceed virtually upon the hypothesis that the will and pleasure of 
Virginia and Maryland are pararnount to those of the Union. If the main 
design of setting apart a federal district had been originally the accommo- 
dation of Maryland, Virginia, and the south, with the United States as an 
agent to consummate the object, there could hardly have been higher as- 
sumption or louder vaunting. The sole object of /i«i;i?7g" such a District was 
in effect totally perverted in the resolution of Mr. Clay, and in the discussions 
of the entire southern delegation, upon its passage. Instead of taking the 
ground, that the benefit of the whole Union was the sole object of a federal 
district, that it was designed to guard and promote the interests of all the 
states, and that it was to be legislated over for this end — the resolution 
proceeds upon an hypothesis totally the reverse. It takes a single point of 
state policy, and exalts it above national interests, utterly overshadowing 
them ; abrogating national rights ; making void a clause of the Constitution ; 
humbling the general government into a subject — crouching for favors to a 
superior, and that too on its own exclusive jurisdiction. All the attributes of 
sovereignty vested in Congress by the Constitution it impales upon the 
point of an alleged implication. And this is Mr. Clay's peace-offering, to 
appease the lust of power and the ravenings of state encroachment ! A 
" compromise," forsooth ! that sinks the general government on its men ter- 
ritory into a mere colony, with Virginia and Maryland for its " mother 
country !" It is refreshing to turn from these shallow, distorted construc- 
tions and servile cringings, to the high bearing of other southern men in 
other times ; men, who in their character of legislators and lawyers, dis- 
dained to accommodate their interpretations of constitutions and charters to 
geographical lines, or to bend them to the purposes of a poHtical canvass. 
In tiie celebrated case of Cohens vs. the State of Virginia, Hon. William 
Pinkney, late of Baltimore, and Hon. Walter Jones, of Washington city, 
with other eminent constitutional lawyers, prepared an elaborate written 
opinion, from which the following is an extract : " Nor is there any danger 
to be apprehended from allowing to Congressional legislation with regard to 
the District of Columbia, its FULLEST EFFECT. Congress is responsible to 
the States, and to the people for that legislation. It is in truth the legisla- 
tion of the states over a district placed under their control for their oum be- 
nejit, not for that of the District, except as the prosperity of the District is 
involved, and necessary to the general advantage." — [Life of Pinkney, p. 
612.] 

The profound legal opinion, from which this is an extract, was elabo- 
rated at great length many years since, by a number of the most distin* 



54 

guished lawyers in the United States, whose signatures are appended to it. 
It is specific and to the point. It asserts, 1st, that Congressional legisla- 
tion over the District, is " the legislation of the States and the people,'* 
(not of ttvo states, and a mere fraction of the people ;) 2d. " Over a District 
placed under their control,'" i. e. under the control of the whole of the Slates, 
not under the control of tico twenty-sixths of them. 3d. That it was thus 
put under their control "/or their own benefit," the benefit of all the States 
equally; not to secure special benefits to Maryland and Virginia, (or what it 
might be co«;Vc/iij-efZ they would regard as benefits.) 4th. It concludes by 
asserting that the design of this exclusive control of Congress over the 
District was " not for the benefit of the District," except as that is con- 
nected with, and a me vis of promoting the general advantage. If this is the 
case with the District, which is directly concerned, it is pre-eminently so 
with Maryland and Virginia, who are but indirectly interested, and would be 
but remotely affected by it. The argument of Mr. Madison in the Congress 
of '89, an extract from which has been given on a preceding page, lays 
down the same principle ; that though any matter " may be a local affair, 
yet if it involves national expense or safety, it becomes of concern to every 
part of the union, a?id is a proper subject for the consideration of those charged 
with the general administration of the government." Cong. Reg. vol. 1. p. 
310, 11. 

But these are only the initiatory absurdities of this "good f\{\\.\\ implied." 
The thirty-six senators aptly illustrate the principle, that error not only 
conflicts with truth, but is generally at issue with itself. For it it would be 
a violation of " good faith" to Maryland and Virginia, for Congress to abo- 
lish slavery in the District, it would be equally a violation for Congress to 
do it with the consent, or even at the earnest and unanimous petition of the 
people of the District : yet for years it has been the southern doctrine, that 
if the people of the District demand of Congress relief in this respect, it has 
power, as their local legislature, to grant it, and by abolishing slavery there, 
carry out the will of the citizens. But now new light has broken in I The 
optics of the thirty-six have pierced the millstone with a deeper insight, and 
discoveries thicken faster than they can be telegraphed ! Congress has no 
power, O no, not a modicum, to help the slaveholders of the District, how- 
ever loudly they may clamor for it. The southern doctrine, that Congress is 
to the District a mere local Legislature to do its pleasure, is tumbled from 
the genitive into the vocative ! Hard fate — and that too at the hands of those 
who begat it ! The reasonings of Messrs. Pinckney, Wise, and Leigh, are 
now found to be wholly at fault, and the chanticleer rhetoric of Messrs. 
Glascock and Garland stalks featherless and crest-fallen. For, Mr. Clay's 
resolution sweeps by the board all those stereotyped common-places, as 
" Congress a local Legislature," " consent of the District," "bound to con- 
sult the wishes of the District," &c. &ic., which for the last two sessions of 
Congress have served to eke out scanty supplies. It declares, that as 
slavenj existed in Maryland and Virginia at the time of the cession, and as 
it still continues in both those states, it could not be abolished in the District 
without a violation of ^ that good faith,'' &c. 

But let us see where this principle of the thirty-six will lead us. If 
•'implied faith" to Maryland and Virginia restrains Congnss from the 
abolition of slavery in the District, it requires Congress to do in the Dis- 
trict what those states have done within their bounds, i. e., lestrain others 
from abolishing it. Upon the same principle Congress is bound, by the 
doctrine of Mr. Clay's reso\ui\on,to prohibit emancipation within the Dis- 
trict. There is no stopping place for this plighted " faith." Congress must 



55 

not only refrain from laying violent hands on slavery, itself, and see to it 
that the slaveholders themselves do not, but it is bound to keep the system 
up to the Maryland and Virginia standard of vigor ! 

Again, if the good faith of Congress to Virginia and Maryland requires 
that slavery should exist in the District, while it exists in those states, it 
requires that it should exist there as it exists in those states. If to abolish 
every form of slavery in the District would violate good faith, to abolish the 
form existing in those states, and to substitute a totally different one, would 
also violate it. The Congressional " good faith" is to be kept not only with 
slavery, but with the Maryland and Virginia systems of slavery. The faith of 
those states not being in the preservation of a system, but of their system ; 
otherwise Congress, instead of sustaining, would counteract their policy — 
principles would be brought into action there conflicting with their system, 
and thus the true spirit of the " implied" pledge would be violated. On 
this principle, so long as slaves are " chattels personal" in Virginia and 
Maryland, Congress could not make them real estate, inseperable from the 
soil, as in Louisiana ; nor could it permit slaves to read, nor to worship 
God according to conscience ; nor could it grant them trial by jury, nor 
legalize marriage ; nor require the master to give sufficient food and cloth- 
ing ; nor prohibit the violent sundering of families — because such provisions 
would conflict with the existing slave laws of Virginia and Maryland, and 
thus violate the " good faith implied," &c. So the principle of the resolu- 
tion binds Congress in all these particulars : Isi.. Not to abolish slavery in 
the District until Virginia and Maryland abolish. 2d. Not to abolish any 
fart of it that exists in those states. 3d. Not to abolish a.ny form or append- 
age of it still existing in those states. 4th. To abolish when they do. 5th. 
To increase or abate its rigors ivhen, how, and as the same are modified 
by those states. In a word. Congressional action in the District is to float 
passively in the wake of legislative action on the subject in tiiose states. 

But here comes a dilemma. Suppose the legislation of those states 
should steer difterent courses — then there would be two wakes ! Can Congress 
float in both ? Yea, verily ! Nothing is too hard for it ! Its obsequious- 
ness equals its " power of legislation in all cases whatsoever." It can float 
up on the Virginia tide, and ebb down on the Maryland at the same time. 
What Maryland does. Congress will do in the Maryland part. What Vir- 
ginia does, Congress will do in the Virginia part. Though Congress might 
not always be able to run at the bidding of both at once, especially in dif- 
ferent directions, yet if it obeyed orders cheerfully, and " kept in its place," 
according to its "good faith implied," impossibilities might not be rigidly 
exacted. True, we have the highest sanction for the maxim that no man 
can serve two masters — but if " corporations have no souls," analogy would 
absolve Congress on that score, or at most give it only a very small soul — 
not large enough to be. at all in the way, as an exception to the universal 
rule laid down in the maxim ! 

In following out the absurdities of this " implied good faith," it will be 
seen at once that the doctrine of Mr. Clay's Resolution, extends to all the 
subjects of legislation existing in Maryland and Virginia, which exist also 
within the District. Every system, " institution," law, and established 
usage there, is placed beyond Congressional control equally with slavery, 
and by the same " implied faith." The abolition of the lottery system in 
the District as an immorality, was a flagrant breach of this "good faith" to 
Maryland and Virginia, as the system "still continued in those states." So 
to abolish imprisonment for debt, and capital punishment, to remodel 
the bank system, the power of corporations, the militia law, laws of 



56 

limitation, &c.s in the District, unless Virginia and Maryland took the lead, 
would violate the " good faith implied in the cession," &c. 

That in the acts of cession no such " good faith" was "implied by Vir- 
ginia and Maryland as is claimed in the Resolution, we argue from the 
fact, that in 1784 Virginia ceded to the United States all her northwest 
territory, with the special proviso that her citizens inhabiting that territory 
should " have their possessions and tides confirmed to them, and be protected 
in the enjoyment of their rights and liberties." (See Journals of Congress 
vol. 9, p. (j3.) The cession was made in the form of a deed, and signed by 
Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Hardy, Arthur Lee, and James Munroe. Many 
of these inhabitants held slaves. Three years after the cession, the Virginia 
delegation in Congress proposed the passage of an ordinance which should 
abolish slavery, in that territory, and declare that it should never there- 
after exist there. All the members of Congress from Virginia and 
Maryland voted for this ordinance. Suppose some member of Con- 
gress had during the passage of the ordinance introduced the following 
resolution : " Resolved, That when the northwest territory was ceded 
by Virginia to the United States, domestic slavery existed in that State, 
includmg the ceded territory, and as it still continues in that State, 
it could not be abolished within the territory without a violation of that 
good faith, which was implied in the cession and in the acceptance of the ter- 
ritory." W hat would have been the indignant response of Grayson, Griffin, 
Madison, and the Lees, in the Congress of '87, to such a resolution, and of 
Carrington, Chairman of the Committee, who reported the ratification of the 
ordinance in the Congress of '89, and of Page and Parker, who with every 
other member of the Virginia delegation supported it ? 

But to enumerate all the absurdities into which the thirty-six Senators 
have plunged themselves, would be to make a quarto inventory. We de- 
cline the task ; and in conclusion, merely add that Mr. Clay in presenting 
this resolution, and each of the thirty-six Senators who voted for it, entered 
on the records of the Senate, and proclaimed to the world, a most unworthy 
accusation against the millions of ^iTierican citizens who have during nearly 
half a century petitioned the national legislature to abolish slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, — charging them either with the ignorance or the impiety of 
praying the nation to violate its " plighted faith." The resolution vir- 
tually indicts at the bar of public opinion, and brands with odium, all the 
Manumission Societies, the first petitioners for the abolition of slavery in the 
District, and for a long time the only ones, petioning from year to year through 
evil report and good report, still petitioning, by individual societies and in 
their national conventions. 

But as if it were not enough to table the charge against such men as Ben- 
jamin Rush, William Rawle, John Sergeant, Robert Vaux, Cadwallader 
Colden, and Peter A. Jay, — to whom we may add Rufus King, James Hill- 
house, Willinm Pinkney!^ Thomas Addis Emmett, Daniel D. Tompkins, De 
Witt Clinton, James Kent, and Daniel Webster, besides eleven hundred 
citizens of the District itself, headed by their Chief Justice and judges — even 
the sovereign States of Pennsylvania, New- York, Massachusetts, and Ver- 
mont, wiiose legislatures have either memorialized Congress to abolish slavery 
in the District, or instructed their Senators to move such a measure, must be 
gravely informed by Messrs. Clay, Norvell, Niles, Smith, Pierce, Benton, 
Black, Tipton, and other honorable Senators, either that their perception is 
so dull, they know not whereof they affirm, or that their moral sense is so blunt- 
ed they can demand without compunction a violation of the nation's faith ! 

Wc have spoken already of the concesisions unwittingly made in this 



67 

resolution to the true doctrine of Congressional power over the District. 
For that concession, important as it is, we have small thanks to render. 
That such a resolution, passed with such an intent, and pressing at a thou- 
sand points on relations and interests vital to tlie free states, should be 
hailed, as it has been, by a portion of the northern press as a "compromise" 
originating in deference to northern interests, and to be received by us as 
a free-will offering of disinterested benevolence, demanding our gratitude 
to the mover, — may well cover us with shame. We deserve the humiliation 
and have well earned the mockery. Let it come ! 

If, after havmg been set up at auction in the public sales-room of the na- 
tion, and for thirty years, and by each of a score of " compromises," treach- 
erously knocked off to the lowest bidder, and that without money and with- 
out price, the North, plundered and betrayed, ivill not, in this her accept- 
ed time, consider the things that belong to her peace before they are 
hidden from her eyes, then let her eat of the fruit of her own way, and be 
filled with her own devices ! Let the shorn and blinded giant grind in the 
prison-house of the Philistines, till taught the folly of intrusting to Delilahs 
the secret and the custody of his strength. 

Have the free States bound themselves by an oath never to profit by the 
lessons of experience 1 If lost to reason^ are they dead to instinct also ? Can 
nothing rouse them to cast about for self preservation 1 And shall a life 
of tame surrenders be terminated by suicidal sacrifice 1 

A " COMPROMISE !" Bitter irony ! Is the plucked and hood-winked 
North to be wheedled by the sorcery of another Missouri compromise "? A 
compromise in which the South gained all, and the North lost all, and lost it 
for ever. A compromise which embargoed the free laborer of the North and 
West, and clutched at the staffhe leaned upon, to turn it into a bludgeon and 
fell him witii its stroke. A compromise which wrested from liberty her 
boundless birthright domain, stretching westward to the sunset, while it gave 
to slavery loose reins and a free course, from the Mississippi to the Pacific. 

The resolution, as it finally passed, is here inserted. The original Resolu- 
tion, as moved by Mr. Clay, was inserted at the head of this postscript with 
the impression that it was the amended form. It will be seen however, that 
it underwent no material modification. 

" Resolved, That the interference by the citizens of any of the states 
with the view to the abolition of slavery in the District, is endangering the 
rights and security of the people of the District ; and that any act or mea- 
sure of Congress designed to abolish slavery in the District, would be a vio- 
lation of the faith implied in the cessions by the states of Virginia and Ma- 
ryland, a just cause of alarm to the people of the slaveholding states, and 
have a direct and inevitable tendency to disturb and endanger the Union." 

The vote upon the Resolution stood as follows : 

Yeas. — Messrs. Allen, Bayard, Benton, Black, Buchanan, Brown, Cal- 
houn, C'ay, of Alabama, Clay, of Kentucky, Clayton, Crittenden, Cuthbert 
Fulton, Grundy, Hubbard, King, Lumpkin, Lyon, Nicholas, Nilcs, Norvell' 
Pierce, Preston, Rives, Roane, Robinson, Sevier, Smith, of Connecticut' 
Strange, Tallmadge, Tipton, Walker, White, Williams, Wrio-hf, Youno-. 

iVa!/s.— Messrs. DAVIS, KNIGHT, McKEAN, xMORRIS, PREN 
TISS, RUGGLES, SMITH, of Indiana, SWIFT, WEBSTER. 















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